> takes nearly 10,000 hours to max all skills and complete all quests, not even considering combat achievements and minigames and such
yeah, i guess that's about right.
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hey video game man! when's the essay on oldschool runescape (OSRS, or 2007scape) coming? just to pique your interest, back in the day (I started playing around 2006) runescape was great and then they released an update called evolution of combat where combat was more MMO-like (like ability cooldowns) and graphics were updated and such. naturally this upset the community and many of us were turned off by the facelift and stopped playing out of disinterest.
well, back in 2013 (??? jesus that's over a decade ago) the devs said "hey guys we found an old backup from 2007 so if this gets a lot of votes then we can run a runescape world using that old save state that you can play on with separate characters." naturally this received such overwhelming response that they didn't just open an individual world (of which there are hundreds), with like over 100,000 positive votes they created a whole separate server with its own dev team and it's now officially branched out into a separate game from normal runescape (dubbed RS3, as EoC basically made it the third version of rs). with a design concept based on "nothing gets added/changed without like 75% affirmative votes," OSRS has developed whole new questlines and regions of the game unique from RS3 (and it's finally coming out with its own new skill after a lot of purists being children about it). all while maintaining those crisp mid-2000s graphics. truly a tale of inspiration.
i am available for interview and J1mmy has good video essays on the topic. there's also neat stuff to talk about regarding game mechanics. that is - the original combat system is "click on the monster and your character attacks it repeatedly until it's dead." this resulted in players manipulating game systems to create techniques - for instance, you can activate prayers to protect from certain damage types, but having a prayer active constantly drains your prayer resource. additionally, because the game is old, it runs on game ticks - essentially the game calculates most inputs and gamestates 100 times per minute, so every .6 seconds. players discovered that the prayer drain happens on game ticks, while damage calculations don't, so "prayer flicking" is the act of switching your prayer off and back on very quickly right on the game tick (many people use metronomes to practice) so that they get the benefits of prayer without spending it nearly as quickly. ("RuneScape is a Rhythm Game.") there are lots of things like this, and the developers have lovingly leaned into it instead of trying to curb it. ("RuneScape Doesn't Teach Combat.") it's all a very neat little segment of gaming history. ("I've Already Given You Many Potential Titles.")
welcome to the key-value pair. (Although i probably need to write about something other than video games here for a little while lol, rest assured prayer flicking has piqued my interest)
I'm curious when the decision to become Big and Dumb happens. Like, Concord started day 1 with the goal to be Big and Dumb, but plenty of other Big Dumb games were small games that stumbled into it and then capitalized on the momentum
I mentioned Slay the Spire, although I'm not married to that definition. Although it's interesting to note that Mega Crit never expected for that game to go where it did and so internally it's very sloppy, hence why they decided to make StS2 rather than continue updating the original game. Its success overwhelmed its design!
I think it's interesting to think about the model in the opposite direction. You say that IF game company affects revenue, cost, player base, THEN they can increase the # of BDG to include their game. I would argue that companies will forever continue to make more Big Dumb Games until they don't have the capital to try, because the value of a successful big dumb game is so high (right now). That instead makes the thesis statement: IF the # of BDGs continues to increase, THEN the share of players/available revenue will have to be more spread out. Essentially, # of BDGs is inversely correlated with profit margin, and as # of BDGs increases, profit margin will approah 0. That would predict increasingly niche gaming communities, for an increasing number of BDGs, until companies no longer want to pay to fight over crumbs.
Then the only term to add would be something to represent turnover. All Big Dumb Games must one day start to lose player base, making room for new Big Dumb Games, which will one day lose player base and thus the cycle continues in a sort of dynamic equilibrium. This is one of those times where capitalism actually works in the consumer's benefit, since consumers have all the power to decide which games become Big and Dumb
I knew I would have to dismiss the question of *which* games survive and fail, because I think that's a lot more complicated and subjective -- hence why I didn't attempt to represent turnover. The distribution question was also outside of my scope, but I think you're right that it would ultimately point towards the formation of niches! That certainly jives with the current state of the industry, and why (e.g.) I'm constantly surprised to hear what Final Fantasy heads are up to.
On the other hand, I wanted to capture how the failures of these games are always relatively spectacular. You can't pump out a game and allow it to become Big and Dumb, you have to call your shot from... well, in Concord's case, eight years prior. They must succeed at a certain business model to even exist.
So it would be more accurate to say that I'm modeling survival rate -- not the direction I thought this would head in, but maybe I should have looked at evolutionary models lol.
Runescape?? A big dumb game???
> takes nearly 10,000 hours to max all skills and complete all quests, not even considering combat achievements and minigames and such
yeah, i guess that's about right.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
hey video game man! when's the essay on oldschool runescape (OSRS, or 2007scape) coming? just to pique your interest, back in the day (I started playing around 2006) runescape was great and then they released an update called evolution of combat where combat was more MMO-like (like ability cooldowns) and graphics were updated and such. naturally this upset the community and many of us were turned off by the facelift and stopped playing out of disinterest.
well, back in 2013 (??? jesus that's over a decade ago) the devs said "hey guys we found an old backup from 2007 so if this gets a lot of votes then we can run a runescape world using that old save state that you can play on with separate characters." naturally this received such overwhelming response that they didn't just open an individual world (of which there are hundreds), with like over 100,000 positive votes they created a whole separate server with its own dev team and it's now officially branched out into a separate game from normal runescape (dubbed RS3, as EoC basically made it the third version of rs). with a design concept based on "nothing gets added/changed without like 75% affirmative votes," OSRS has developed whole new questlines and regions of the game unique from RS3 (and it's finally coming out with its own new skill after a lot of purists being children about it). all while maintaining those crisp mid-2000s graphics. truly a tale of inspiration.
i am available for interview and J1mmy has good video essays on the topic. there's also neat stuff to talk about regarding game mechanics. that is - the original combat system is "click on the monster and your character attacks it repeatedly until it's dead." this resulted in players manipulating game systems to create techniques - for instance, you can activate prayers to protect from certain damage types, but having a prayer active constantly drains your prayer resource. additionally, because the game is old, it runs on game ticks - essentially the game calculates most inputs and gamestates 100 times per minute, so every .6 seconds. players discovered that the prayer drain happens on game ticks, while damage calculations don't, so "prayer flicking" is the act of switching your prayer off and back on very quickly right on the game tick (many people use metronomes to practice) so that they get the benefits of prayer without spending it nearly as quickly. ("RuneScape is a Rhythm Game.") there are lots of things like this, and the developers have lovingly leaned into it instead of trying to curb it. ("RuneScape Doesn't Teach Combat.") it's all a very neat little segment of gaming history. ("I've Already Given You Many Potential Titles.")
welcome to the key-value pair. (Although i probably need to write about something other than video games here for a little while lol, rest assured prayer flicking has piqued my interest)
I'm curious when the decision to become Big and Dumb happens. Like, Concord started day 1 with the goal to be Big and Dumb, but plenty of other Big Dumb games were small games that stumbled into it and then capitalized on the momentum
what are some big dumb games that didn't intend on becoming big dumb games?
I mentioned Slay the Spire, although I'm not married to that definition. Although it's interesting to note that Mega Crit never expected for that game to go where it did and so internally it's very sloppy, hence why they decided to make StS2 rather than continue updating the original game. Its success overwhelmed its design!
I think it's interesting to think about the model in the opposite direction. You say that IF game company affects revenue, cost, player base, THEN they can increase the # of BDG to include their game. I would argue that companies will forever continue to make more Big Dumb Games until they don't have the capital to try, because the value of a successful big dumb game is so high (right now). That instead makes the thesis statement: IF the # of BDGs continues to increase, THEN the share of players/available revenue will have to be more spread out. Essentially, # of BDGs is inversely correlated with profit margin, and as # of BDGs increases, profit margin will approah 0. That would predict increasingly niche gaming communities, for an increasing number of BDGs, until companies no longer want to pay to fight over crumbs.
Then the only term to add would be something to represent turnover. All Big Dumb Games must one day start to lose player base, making room for new Big Dumb Games, which will one day lose player base and thus the cycle continues in a sort of dynamic equilibrium. This is one of those times where capitalism actually works in the consumer's benefit, since consumers have all the power to decide which games become Big and Dumb
I knew I would have to dismiss the question of *which* games survive and fail, because I think that's a lot more complicated and subjective -- hence why I didn't attempt to represent turnover. The distribution question was also outside of my scope, but I think you're right that it would ultimately point towards the formation of niches! That certainly jives with the current state of the industry, and why (e.g.) I'm constantly surprised to hear what Final Fantasy heads are up to.
On the other hand, I wanted to capture how the failures of these games are always relatively spectacular. You can't pump out a game and allow it to become Big and Dumb, you have to call your shot from... well, in Concord's case, eight years prior. They must succeed at a certain business model to even exist.
So it would be more accurate to say that I'm modeling survival rate -- not the direction I thought this would head in, but maybe I should have looked at evolutionary models lol.