THENECROMANCER'S PROFILE

author=Kevincalanor
How many of those people we see creating introductions topics actually sticks around in average?

Keep in mind that just because they don't post, if that is your way of determining if they are still around, it doesn't mean they are no longer around. A typical misconception is that the site is all about the forum users, when in fact the active forum users are a small % of the site userbase.

Or something like that.

author=Red_Nova
So what I'm hearing from the last couple pages is: Never play games anymore. Just watch the LPs and read the cliffnotes. Also, because a game has flaws automatically means they have nothing to help any aspiring developer.

Man, this game dev stuff is easy. XD

Ridiculously blanket cynicism aside, "fun" is an entirely subjective measurement, and I'm not sure why we're using that as evidence that they have nothing to offer to aspiring devs so they should never be played.

It was my impression that he wanted to know which games to PLAY in order to LEARN. In which case, yes, don't play them. Just read about them and watch parts(cause reading alone doesn't mean you understand what it was like to play the game). In terms of expanding game dev knowledge, playing any of these classics games in full won't offer more rewards than just reading about the good parts.

Old games are full of bad UI, bad inventory management, lame dialogue due to censorship or localization, barebones game play elements, poor pacing, shallow stories, and a healthy dose of grinding. So the more you play, the more you are experiencing that bad stuff. Which means you are not becoming a better dev, you're just torturing yourself.

Which is why you read about the core concepts and good parts, throw away the bad, and you become a better dev just as if you had played that game in full at the time it came out. You gained just as much positive knowledge.

If the point of playing the games is anything other than learning, then none of this applies. I think the whole argument with kentona is a side quest and has nothing to do with playing games to become a better dev. It's just his personal feelings about newer games vs older games. Not about the merits of John Q Gamer playing older games to become a better dev.

This site lives on pointless comments. If there were no pointless comments the site would be bare.

The short answer is don't play any of these games. Just research them.

Read the manual or gamefaq files(this is probably the best of all). Read about people's party make up and equip choices. Watch snippets of gameplay to see how it works in reality. To play a game from the start means you need to suffer through the slow paced beginning and time consuming grinding just to pass a few levels in an hour or two, and by then you won't really learn much because most gameplay mechanics show themselves towards the end of the game when all moves and options and characters are unlocked. Huge waste of time for very little reward.

For some games you could probably play one, and understand the other. Like if you played one FF game(before around 9-10), then played an older one, there wouldn't be much different except a few battle options. So just play one and read about the differences in the other. For the love of god don't play FF 4 5 and 6.

Hell, for most of these games a person could give you a few sentences and you will take away everything interesting from that game without having to play it. From a research point of view, the only reason to play these games is to enjoy the story as that is the kind of thing that requires large amounts of time to take in. Which is to say there is no reason to play these games if you simply want to learn gameplay stuff. Gameplay elements are bullet points. Change job/class. Catch monsters to use them to fight. Combine 2 character's skills into one. Enough said. Then mix and match and come up with your own spin on them. Expand on them. Tie them into other gameplay elements.

You might want to play some of these games more because it offers many different ways for the player to change their ingame strategy, which then gives more insight into the nuances of the gameplay. But I doubt many games offer that much. Most games tend to have limited number of strategies that work, and it usually involves dealing more damage or use the good equip loadouts. Or flat out over leveling. Even if a game offers different classes, playing it as a different class probably won't teach you anything new about it's gameplay.

Of course if you like a game, you might want to play it all the way through. There's that.

What's next, RPGs for gold? haha I can understand we need money but 1$ per image seems a little too much. Not bad for once, but do it multiple times and you're a sucker. You wouldn't get much out of just 1 day of exposure.

It could be if you donate again you get the ability to do that. There could be a space on your profile where you can upload an image that gets sent to a queue to be reviewed for rotation of this.

I enjoy discussing very specific details of this non-existent feature. And Liberty needs more queues to sift through.