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Game Development has changed your gaming experience?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Ben-Massey, Oct 23, 2012.

  1. Ben-Massey

    Ben-Massey

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    Ever since i was a little kid i played computer games (who doesn't) but i never paid attention to the amount of work put into game development. Before Unity i hadn't the slightest idea how a game was made and just assumed it was 'magically' created with a super computer, boy was i wrong.

    Anyway, after my first few years learning Unity, coding, modelling, texturing, composing, and all that funs stuff, i had a completely knew perspective on games. I found myself instead of actually playing the game, staring at tree models, skyboxes, Gui, particles etc. I was literally imagining the process each asset went through and possible techniques they used. For eg, Playing online with friends and an intense cutscene plays and their reaction is "wow awesome" and im just staring at it like "How did they get those two animations to play in sequence", completely oblivious to whats happening.

    I just thought id post this out there and see if anyone els is experiencing the same sort of 'thing'. It can get quite annoying sometimes and distract you from an epic storyline.
     
  2. User340

    User340

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    After developing games for over 5 years, it is seeming a bit more difficult for me to get as immersed into video games as it once was. Not sure if its that I now understand that games are nothing but a bunch of models, textures, scripts, etc... all bunched together, or merely my age.
     
  3. Ben-Massey

    Ben-Massey

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    You put that much better than i did, thanks haha
     
  4. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    Sure, but a book is just a bunch of words, a movie us just pictures and sounds recorded of people playing dress-ups, and so on. If you choose to look at the constituent parts of any work in isolation you're always going to miss the forest for the trees.

    For me, I think I've ended up enjoying games even more. I still get just as immersed as I always have, but on top of that I can now also appreciate the work and artistic or technical talent that goes into the game. It's the same as, being a bit of an audio snob, I enjoy both the music and the sound when I listen to music. The experience is one thing and the appreciation is another, and they can both be enjoyed in their own right.
     
  5. khanstruct

    khanstruct

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    It's like going to see a magician when you know how all the tricks work. It's still entertaining in its own way, but the immersion is gone.
     
  6. SimonAlkemade

    SimonAlkemade

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    I have the same feeling. Actually I spend a lot less time playing games than I did 10 years back. Especially graphics programming causes a different set of eyes when playing a game. I don't think the knowledge of building games has ruined it for me but it definetly takes away the suspension of disbelief.
     
  7. HolBol

    HolBol

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    This. I think I spend more time in games now working out how they did everything, where the seams are in the UV mapping, how much they got away with out of sheer laziness etc. I still very much enjoy playing games, and regularly too, but I still find myself picking flaws in it.
     
  8. AnomalusUndrdog

    AnomalusUndrdog

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    It's not a problem for me. I can still appreciate it even if I know how it's made. On that regard, I don't like doing things like min-maxing because that removes the enjoyment for me. Min-maxing entails understanding the formulae of the game to abuse the system to your advantage.
     
  9. Democre

    Democre

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    It's almost exactly the same as going to concerts before and after having been a stage hand.
    Being behind the curtain demystifies the original experience, but can give someone a completely different sense of wonder and appreciation.
     
  10. wccrawford

    wccrawford

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    I appreciate games more. Without dev knowledge, it was all just eyecandy. Things happened, it was fun, blah blah blah.

    Now that I understand the fundamentals of things, I can appreciate how Mario moves and how the camera works. I can appreciate the small differences in games that makes one feel slightly better than another. I can appreciate things that used to be horribly complex, like the slicing mechanic in Tiny Big. (They implemented that themselves, in their own engine!)

    This reminds me of a conversation I had with an exGF. I was talking to someone about the Aurora Borealis and how much energy was in it, and how it was formed. She got upset and chided us for ruining the wonder of something beautiful. I explained that I now find it *more* wonderful and not less, because I know just how powerful it is, as well as being beautiful.

    For me, the How of something doesn't destroy it. It only improves it.
     
  11. Broken-Toy

    Broken-Toy

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    The more I know how games are made, the more impressed I am at them in terms of looks, sounds, behaviors and conveying their theme or story. Being able to understand the underlying cogs only makes them more enjoyable, albeit in a different way than when things 'just happened magically'. It also makes me appreciate a lot more the work put behind them, although this also creates a bias compared to the general public which has to be taken into consideration to objectively gauge what's good and what's not.
     
  12. fano_linux

    fano_linux

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    I'm really impressed of what i can do now in game development than in 4 years back. But in game experience i beleave is the same, i'm a diferent person while i'm playing a game that i like (if you know what i mean) then when i'm developing.
     
  13. PrimeDerektive

    PrimeDerektive

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    For me it really separates the wheat from the chaff. Now, when a game does manage to immerse me and I am able to stop trying to pierce the veil, however rarely that happens, I know its a damned good game. All too often I "see the matrix" and lose interest.
     
  14. AndrewGrayGames

    AndrewGrayGames

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    +1, sir. +1.
     
  15. GeorgeRigato

    GeorgeRigato

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    As the major replies here, I also feel less prone to get caught by the game. As developers we can deconstruct the game and analyze its several components. And this experience can be sometimes good or evil (I mean bad :cool:).

    On the bad side, which is really getting into me these days is the inability to appreciate majority of games for long periods of time. I am experiencing lots of short bursts of happiness and joy discovering a new game, and in a couple of days it's gone. It's really frustrating.

    On the good side, when we find a component or set of features in a game that really pops up and shines, it brings a awesome feeling. an joy of knowing why you find this game nice or different. In one way you become part of it. And maybe it is provided by an knowledge that non developers don't have or got partially.

    And on the line of game development the entertaining and work mixing can get a little confusing and turn one experience that was joyful into something hard to handle.

    Finally I think that any kind of specialization on any area of human knowledge would bring this effect of deconstruction of a man made object.
     
  16. JamesLeeNZ

    JamesLeeNZ

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    Not really, but I do find myself running up to stuff to see how its been constructed at times.

    Especially plants! Im a programmer though, so I need any assistance I can when it comes to modelling
     
  17. Kinos141

    Kinos141

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    After getting into game development, when I play a game all I see is pieces put together to make a whole. I also see code, I'm, like, Neo, man, from the Matrix. I see parts, like coding, modelling, texturing, composing and all of that stuff. I can see how explosions work, how character models move, how guns hurts the player and vice versa(players hurts the gun? now, that's an interesting concept. lol). I love being able to do that, it enhances my experience

    However, I'm glad I can throw that away at times, and enjoy what I'm looking at with no analytically thought. (That, and my breakdowns annoys my fiance.):p
     
  18. Kinos141

    Kinos141

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    I think it's experience. How many times can we get immersed in "routine soldier guy killing insurgents with no non violent solution?"
    It's hard to get into stories now, because they suck!!! The new Medal of Honor: Warfighter is bland and boring.
     
  19. khanstruct

    khanstruct

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    Heh, go play Just Cause 2. Watching the billboard trees turn to stare at you gets creepy real fast. (One of my artists was the first to notice it and point it out. Now I can't unsee it.)
     
  20. XavLar

    XavLar

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    200% changed my view of games now. As someone just said, I go looking for how they modeled their character and where their UV seems are, and find what they did very lazily. For instance in Borderlands 2, I found a very easy way to glitch out of the map and skip about 20 enemies, I personally don't use it for cheating but I examine how they laid out the map and the fact they used in some places the default UDK primitives.

    I would say despite trying to find their flaws, I do not get merged into the game as much as I did when I was 5+, but it does give me a better understanding on how much actually went into a game.
     
  21. Meltdown

    Meltdown

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    Since I started game development, I found I play less games now. I really find it hard to get into a game nowadays.
    Now and again I'll get hooked on something, but that's rather rare.

    I also find myself playing more indie/unique games than anything else.
     
  22. jc_lvngstn

    jc_lvngstn

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    I appreciate game development more, and all that it involves. But I also have struggled with going from what imagining something and being enthralled with the potential, and then feeling at times like I am just working with polygons and pixels, and C# code.
     
  23. TehWut

    TehWut

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    I actually enjoy picking through the games pieces. Learning how the textures work, where they are allocated the most, where repeating textures are, the methods of modeling, seams, animations, and all the loopholes of said concepts in between. Games are really amazing things, I can only appreciate them even more. Dark Souls, my favorite, still leaves me with a great bit of mystery though, gotta go back to the drawing board!
     
  24. JamesLeeNZ

    JamesLeeNZ

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    ha yeah those billboard plants. Never thought about them as creepy tho! heh
     
  25. Relateck Games

    Relateck Games

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    Im going through the same phase. It's weird with a different perspective of games.
     
  26. Ippokratis

    Ippokratis

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    I started playing games again :)
     
  27. khanstruct

    khanstruct

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    I just started playing the new X-Com: Enemy Unknown. Honestly, the first game I've played in ages.

    Ahh, reminds me of why I do this :)
     
  28. Redbeer

    Redbeer

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    It's just a natural progression for me.
    Of course I was the type of person that would hand gather data about hits before games offered text file logging, or create spreadsheets to compare talent specializations across character types, before there were online tools, and measure relative sizes and speeds of characters on platformers.
    I was also one of those crazy people that would create a paper dungeon map on a grid back when there were no graphics, or no in game maps.
    :D
     
  29. jedy

    jedy

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    For me it strongly depends on the current state of mind I'm currently in.
    Recently I've had quite a lot of fun with Dark Souls ( great game by the way ) - most of the time I was immersed in the game, not thinking about anything and just enjoying every one of my bloody deaths.
    While at other times I was all analytical about the mechanics and gameplay and stuff, I did my part in trying to mess with the game and found a couple of bugs. I messed with the graphics a bit - basically when you pimp up the SSAO, the depth buffer data becomes kinda useless and you have this dark shadow ( appropriate lol ) around you at all times.

    Anyway lately I've hardly found too many games to keep me enough occupied, for me not to try messing up the whole thing most of the time.
     
  30. abysswolf

    abysswolf

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    making games for me is much more exiting than playing them but i agreed with spanda.. now i see more details than i used to ...
     
  31. AmazingRuss

    AmazingRuss

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    It's kind of ruined everything but multiplayer for me. I spend as much time thinking about how something was done or picking out flaws as I do playing.