Due to the blank between Harada and TEKKEN, the title reads like he said TEKKEN as he imagined it is dead, but what he actually wrote is his X handle (with the underscore), so he’s talking about himself.
I cant remember specifics, but it felt overdesigned. The first was a little tricky to get comfortable with, but was pretty intuitive. I had a ton of fun playing against what I can only assume were bots.
They dropped the first one while it was still hot. There was nothing wrong with it and it was quite fun. The fact they can’t even stand behind any of these changes they announce makes me unwilling to invest time into their products as they could rug pull yet again any moment.
I seem to recall the reason they dropped the first one being that the tech stack it was built on couldn’t support the number of players trying to play it at once.
Halo was a game with a single player campaign, that could be played co-op, and also had versus multiplayer. It served many masters. This game only serves the latter. Halo’s multiplayer was played for years by a core group, but probably the most common use case was that it was played only a handful of times with friends, everyone had a great time, and it didn’t matter that people didn’t keep playing it after those handful of times. What would make FPS games great again, to me, is if we remembered all of that stuff about Halo rather than trying to be the one viral success out of tens of thousands of game releases every year, where failure results in tons of job losses because your company has no Plan B.
I think this just a sign of changing times regarding how games are made. We've come a long way from the days when one programmer added multiplayer into Goldeneye at the very end of development, that could never happen today. And those are the footsteps Halo 1 followed in, they didn't even have Xbox Live until the sequel.
Today, I think trying to make a game do a little bit of everything may risk struggling to stand out against titles that focus all of their development resources on just doing one thing really really well. You do have a point that having solo content to fall back on is at least a safety net, but does the opportunity cost of implementing that solo content make it even harder to succeed as a multiplayer game in such a competitive market?
I think this is definitely the case. For example, Halo Infinite is probably the last “classic” Halo game we’ll get in the sense of it has campaign and multiplayer, future games will probably just focus on either the campaign side of things or multiplayer. And some might even be public lobbies only, no custom games/forge.
As much as I wish we could get something as content complete as Halo 3 nowadays, it just doesn’t seem feasible anymore
We’ve come a long way from the days when one programmer added multiplayer into Goldeneye at the very end of development, that could never happen today.
Why? I can’t name a reason why this couldn’t be. Even extrapolating out for added complexity of network multiplayer, maybe it wouldn’t be feasible to add in just a handful of weeks, but if you’re already developing with client-server in mind, the same thing can still be whipped up today in a reasonable amount of time.
Even the rest of your comment makes it seem like if there aren’t thousands of concurrent players weeks after launch that it’s somehow failed as a multiplayer game. The industry has broken all of our brains so thoroughly that most of us can’t remember a time where that wasn’t a goal, and I’m arguing that it’s better if we didn’t make it the goal. If you make a multiplayer mode that you can play with friends, that has bots to fall back on when you don’t, and is designed to scale to very few players in a match, that multiplayer mode offers just as much value in week 1 as it does 20 years later. It’s not falling back on a single player mode, nor is it a failure as a multiplayer game in a competitive market if you build something that can withstand reaching a small audience, like the industry used to. That we used to get both modes in tons of games back in the day is what made these games “the full package” rather than only a single player game or only a multiplayer game, and I reject the idea that one of those two things has to suffer for the other to be good.
Halo didn’t have Xbox Live until the sequel because Xbox Live didn’t exist yet when Halo 1 was built, but it did still have network multiplayer. And that was still very much serving multiple masters, just like its predecessor.
Because most games aren’t designed client-server. GoldenEye was entirely local, so it didn’t need any networking, replication, or anti-cheat.
Games these days have a lot more going on. You need to replicate a lot of stuff in the world, you need to ensure that none of the clients are telling you something impossible, and you need a way to deal with cheaters. Usually that means accounts, anti-cheat, and bans. That’s a significant amount of infrastructure and management. And then you also have a lot of legal compliance too, like GDPR, and even more problems if minors will be playing your game online.
Even just split-screen multiplayer has value. Replication is handled by the engine. User accounts are handled by your storefront. Anti-cheat is something you’re thinking about if you’re designing an e-sport, but if you’re just making a fun video game that you might play with friends, it’s a nice-to-have. Why are we even collecting data such that GDPR is a problem? I know these are all things that multiplayer devs tell you they’re thinking about as to why this is so complicated, but we’ve lost the plot here so much that they’re building a game that they’re already expecting is going to reach millions of people without even being sure that they’re going to hit thousands. Which is how we get to an article like this one.
I only played the “first” one, but that one did feel incredibly like Halo to me. Just with the added functionality of portals.
I mean you have an assault rifle, a battle rifle, a pistol, a DMR, and shotguns. I’m sure there are some other ones I’m not remembering.
Edit: I also actually liked the functionality that grenades had. Instead of a crowd control or room-clearing tool, now they’re specifically to disable enemy portals. So now you had an interesting dynamic where yes, you can portal all the way across the map (or try sniping someone through a portal) into the enemy’s base and try to score, but it also presents a nice little counter to that strategy.
I tried it when it first launched, perhaps its just me getting older but the portal mechanic was just tedious. Learning maps is already hard enough without enemies being able to teleport around.
Being a 500 person studio with a 400 million dollar publisher means you still qualify for the Indie™ Game Awards but using ChatGPT to make a random powerpoint is just a bridge too far.
Apparently Blue Archive, the game that was given the award after they disqualified E33, ALSO used AI.
Their use of AI to make placeholder assets (which aren’t in the released game) is why it felt off? While it’s not for everyone, it’s still objectively one of the best games released recently.
The soundtrack is just pure art. There’s more variety in this than most games, across many genres, and is over 8 hours long in total. Lorien Testard is a genius and we need more of his work in gaming beyond this game and even beyond Sandfall. Also Alice Duport-Percier (the female vocalist) has true perfect pitch, is an opera singer, and has beautiful diction despite my not knowing French.
The story is very fresh, unpredictable (though I’ve seen people take wild stabs at it while playing and getting somewhat close but still missing), and isn’t written in the cliche ways that we’re used to because the lead writer, Jennifer Svedberg-Yen, has never worked in the gaming industry, nor ever published a piece of writing before. She writes primarily for her own entertainment and as an outlet, and is brilliant in her own right outside of writing. Also her work in writing believable dialog made things feel more authentic, especially when characters argue. It just flows well.
The voice acting is top-notch. The fact Kepler was able to throw money at this game specifically for the voice cast because they believed in it, says a lot. Sandfall didn’t ask for this money, but Kepler knew they had to help out however they could.
The gameplay is what I’m guessing is what you dislike the most, as that’s normally what those who don’t like it talk about. Very subjective, but for those of us who love turned-based games or who are into tight combat found in Souls-likes (I’m in the former, but now looking at the latter), it keeps people engaged. I’ve played thousands and thousands of hours playing turn-based games, but this one doesn’t just let you passively fight until you’ve made significant progress and learn the timings. The countering feels powerful, and if you really want you can completely break the balance if you want and are creative in your setup. And now that they added the ability to make things more difficult, even the pros have a challenge to come back to.
I’m not trying to pressure you into giving it another shot, but those 4 things are enough to land this game into my top 3 all-time games.
I mean, I’ll never give it a shot to play. It’s too long, I have a job, and I have games I want to play more that will certainly be more enjoyable to me. I never played this game, as I said it’s not even remotely my taste. That’s also why I need to have someone explain what makes it supposedly good for what it is.
Most of these remarks are circular though, “it’s good because it’s good/I liked it.” Which is fine, but doesn’t really speak to the game. Gameplay seems to be where you’re better at articulating what’s actually good here. I don’t know this genre, so it’s exceptional that there is a combination of active and passive combat tied to the player’s experience? This is something exclusive or executed in a notable way here, or it’s just something that’s been done before that you feel is elevated because you like the story production?
No, objectively right. You can quantify the overall appeal very easily. It was the top user-rated game on MetaCritic EVER, had critical acclaim, obviously won many awards despite this AI debacle in the IGAs, sold over 5 million copies already even though it was on GamePass, and has maintained a fan gathering all these many months later even before they won at the TGAs.
And since you edited yours, I’ll just edit this: that’s not true. It’s primarily a subjective word, but only when you cannot quantify the statement. Look at sports statistics as a prime example of this. You can get a “best” players, teams, etc of a sport based on their actual performance, especially if you are looking at specific stats and use that stat as part of the statement you’re making.
Ya it has its place for sure, for example I’d rather have rpg conversations with an AI NPC than some prescripted repeated nonsense. Maybe that’s just me though.
You may be able to have more involved conversations with an LLM-powered NPC, and it won’t be pre-scripted at repeated, but it is still likely to be both nonsense and not necessarily relevant to the game loop and may be setting-inappropriate dialogue. The pre-scripted and repeated dialogue would almost surely not have those problems the LLM would.
Its important to remember that these LLMs are grievously power-hungry for what they do, so if they only trade one problem for another, you must also consider the loss of efficiency as yet another problem, even if its not always that big of one.
People are saying “it’s fine because it was used in the early stages of the game for placeholder art” but that’s kind of missing the point
The problem is that they used AI and didn’t disclose it, as well as releasing the game with AI textures still in it. Yes, these textures were quickly replaced, but it’s still very concerning they weren’t upfront on how they were using it in the game making process
Edit: there isn’t even a disclosure on their steam page
If I make a mock up of a cake using toxic ingredients, then throw that out and make my cake from scratch using food safe ingredients, do I need to disclose that “toxic material was used when making this cake”? I don’t think so.
Of course this kinda falls apart when they shipped with quickly replaced textures. But I also wouldn’t expect them to disclose the game as unfinished if they forgot to replace blank textures with the proper assets until just after release.
This is less like making a new cake from scratch after disposing of the previous one, and more like making a new cake using the same unwashed cake tin and utensils
No matter what, the AI replacements would have affected how the artists made the final products as, whether they liked it or not, they had a point of reference in the form of the AI texture
It’s is still their own artistic sensibility that made the art, not the AI. You will always be inspired by other things while doing anything requiring creativity.
Would being inspired by Picasso suddenly make one art worthless? Of course not. So why would being inspired by an AI generated example make it any different ?
It’d be on brand then - if they asked AI to write out an argument for them, they’d take credit for the whole essay & if found out, they’d claim it was what they wanted to convey anyway
Not necessarily. If I use an anthropomorphic cat as an asset for a character who in the end is a robot, can you really say it took inspiration?
Granted, I haven’t seen any of the assets. But placeholders aren’t inherently inspiration. They can easily just be random things to look at before proper assets are made.
And even if they did take inspiration, that isn’t the complaint. Would there be a need to disclose if they used a generative AI to generate a picture, and they used that as inspiration? What if they saw an gen AI image someone else posted and used that as inspiration? Inspiration isn’t the problem, it’s the “use of AI in development” which seems silly when these could have potentially been wire frames and result in the exact same final product.
At the end of the day, this is just an award. It’s not up to the award giver to define and micromanage what a “safe and acceptable, or appropriate amount of gen AI” can be used in the dev process.
When competing against other titles that haven’t, regardless of how it was used, an award show is going to draw a very hard line.
I’m sure they didn’t have to go the route of using gen AI, but they chose it, and did not disclose it.
If you’re applying for an award that asks “were toxic ingredients used at any point while making this cake” because part of the culture of the award is not using toxic ingredients, then yeah, you need to disclose that you used toxic ingredients.
Maybe because all AI generated assets got removed?
Honestly, as a programmer that uses extensively AI to debug, and do various tedious tasks like unit tests, I think the whole anti-AI craze of late is more bullshit than sane arguments.
It’s an invaluable tool for many cases, and as soon is it is not used to replace someone, I don’t see the problem. They where used by artists, to be used as placeholders while working on the gme, not by executives seeking to make some more bucks by not hiring anyone.
They forgot some of them in the final game? Shit happens. You cannot expect someone to go through every single texture in a game that probably got thousands, if not tenths of thousands, just to make sure none was forgotten.
Anyway, that’s blown way out of propositions, and feels more like some people trying to get views by hating on something popular than having real concerns about it. Especially since Blue Prince does use AI assets in the final product, and strangely no one bats an eye.
This entire comment is baffling to me, in all honesty
Maybe because all AI generated assets got removed?
Not before being unknowingly sold to the public
I think the whole anti-AI craze of late is more bullshit than sane arguments.
My problem with AI is its heavy usage of plagiarism and vast degree of power consumption, as well as the price hikes its caused for many computer parts
They where used by artists… not by executives seeking to make some more bucks
Whenever anything is attempting to make money, it should be put under the highest scrutiny. It does not matter who’s pushing it. Similarly, I find it odd that we’re assuming the inner workings of Clair Obscur’s workplace
You cannot expect someone to go through every single texture in a game… just to make sure [no AI] was forgotten
If you replaced AI here with anything defamatory, like pictures of penises placed by an enraged employee after being fired, then even having a few would be devastating on sales. The single fact that we’re okay with a few means that, over time, that bar will likely be pushed further down the road “oh, it’s just this one character that practically never shows up” “oh, it’s just the skyboxes, they’re basically not noticeable anyway” “who cares if the early access uses AI voices? They’ll be replaced eventually!”
people trying to get views by hating on something popular
Well, if that was truly forgotten in the game at release, and removed once discovered, I don’t see any problem. The textures that are used now are 100% hand made by actual artist, to my knowledge.
My problem with AI is its heavy usage of plagiarism and vast degree of power consumption, as well as the price hikes its caused for many computer parts.
I entirely agree with you there.
The plagiarism problem is in my opinion partly resolved by open datasets (OpenOrca, and the like), which means the user has the possibility of choosing to not rely on plagiarism. Problem is that the models trained with those dataset are rarely available on public platform, which is another reason why I use my own infrastructure.
Personally I use Mistal-7B-OpenOrca on a locally run Ollama, which reside in my homelab.
The power consumption is a problem, and the reason why I use my own dedicated hardware for anything related to AI (which has also the advantage of heating my home a little bit, so nothing is lost 😆).
I even invested in a laptop with dedicated AI hardware to be able to make it as efficient as possible. And of course got hit by the AI taxe, albeit I was lucky to get 32Go DDR5 at only twice the usual rate instead of five time the usual rate as it is currently the case.
Whenever anything is attempting to make money, it should be put under the highest scrutiny. It does not matter who’s pushing it. Similarly, I find it odd that we’re assuming the inner workings of Clair Obscur’s workplace
You are partly right. But when machine replaced some of the human hard labor in industry, we welcomed it. Who would want to make a car with a hammer when an hydraulic press is available? AI is a tool that should be used to ease the burden of doing repetitive small task in order to focus on what’s one want to do. Can I blame someone for using placeholder texture, being AI or from an asset store, instead of spending days making the rocks look just right when you aren’t even sure the project will ever be funded?
But I don’t think they the the kind of guys to seek wealth or fame. They put their energy in a project they believed in, can we blame them to have used the tools they had in hand to try making the most of their limited budget ?
If you replaced AI here with anything defamatory, like pictures of penises placed by an enraged employee after being fired, then even having a few would be devastating on sales. The single fact that we’re okay with a few means that, over time, that bar will likely be pushed further down the road “oh, it’s just this one character that practically never shows up” “oh, it’s just the skyboxes, they’re basically not noticeable anyway” “who cares if the early access uses AI voices? They’ll be replaced eventually!”
You’d be surprised how often it happen for former angry employees to do that. We even had example in some Disney, with very explicit scenes even going all the way to customers.
I never said that they where OK with it, just that no one can be expected to check every little texture without being expected to miss some of them. Human are prone to fatigue, and I saw many bugs going in production due to such errors of judgement.
As for using AI during early access, IMO it depends on the size of the project. And one man project ? Totally fine, even after launch. A full 400 men project from a big publisher? Not so much, they have to mean to do it by hand. Especially considering how expensive they sell it afterward.
Clair Obscur being a mostly 30 men project (plus some occasional extras), I, personally, don’t see AI usage as a problem as soon as it is sparsely used.
I assure you, AI is not popular. Studies have shown that AI is causing people more concern than excitement Not the most reputable source, but oh well
I’m speaking about Clair Obscur, not AI. Don’t you feel surprised that as soon as they get a big boost from the game award, you see people left and right creating dramas for whatever reason they find? Some forgotten AI texture in the final game? Really?
Blue Prince does use AI assets No it didn’t
My apology for jumping on that bandwagon. I’m unfortunately not totally immune to that either 😅
On the other hand, IGA did forbid AI on the whole project pipeline, and if I find it a bit overblown, it is their choice, and I’ll respect that.
What baffles me is all the hate Clair Obscur got because of that. The vast majority was made by hand, and the game is good. If the story was AI gen, or the music, I’d agree, but a fucking texture? In which way would it suddenly make a multiple year project shit like some pretends?
[if AI was] removed once discovered, I don’t see any problem
The problem was that it was sold to consumers at all without consent. You don’t get off scot free when you accidently leave some cocaine for the inlaws to find. There was malicious intent just by not disclosing its usage
OpenOrca
You bring this up and imply we’re agreeing here, but I find it odd that you immediately backtrack and say that AI usage in general, not OpenOrca usage, is a-okay. It’s entirely irrelevant what AI tool you use if this company didn’t
Can I blame someone for using placeholder texture [using] AI
Yes. A placeholder texture should be made to be obvious that it’s a placeholder. As soon as it doesn’t do that, it’s failed at its job. By using AI like this, you’re effectively making the QA’s job 10 times harder, as now they have to stare at every texture to make sure it’s not AI generated
left and right creating drama [about CO]
Yes. Because information came out on a large platform that allowed more people to hear about it compared to when it was initially released.
I actually played through Clair Obscur about two months ago and gave it a very hearty review on steam, but as soon as I heard that they used AI without disclosing it that changed into a very charged negative thumbs down. It’s very easy to pretend that people just hate things because they’re popular, you see it all the time with youtubers and movies after all. Unfortunately, there’s usually a very good reason that irks these people
The vast majority was made by hand, and the game is good
You seem to have missed my main point, and it’s not just here, either. You eluded to this frame of mind multiple times when writing these past two comments. My entire argument is that it was incredibly scummy to not disclose the usage of AI, robbing the buyer of any agency in the matter
Me responding to your other points is really just entertaining their idea, rather than engaging in a thoughtful discussion, as the only response you had for this main point was mainly along the lines of the above quote I’m responding to, which is really just moving goalposts
By acting like it doesn’t matter because everything else is good, you’re kind of weirdly conceding the point, as if it didn’t matter if they did it, then why shouldn’t they disclose it?
I’m OK with that tbh. If we normalise disclosures for any use of AI, ever, the some AI vibe-code slop gets declared the same way as a meticulously crafted game (but the devs used AI for research/brainstorming), or even ‘devs used Google and they may have been inspired by the search AI’ etc
I think AI as a tech is pretty cool. I think using AI is less cool, since it is using far more resources than we can afford to give it, so I avoid using AI at all, even if I think the tech itself is morally neutral.
And I think the way we’re using AI is horrifying. Not just how companies push it, but the common use, too. People are outsourcing their thinking and comprehension to AI, and their own personal development is stagnating. This is particularly terrifying in children and college students. Would I rather have a doctor/social worker/financial advisor that gained a degree through AI and couldn’t adapt to real world exceptions? Or none at all? Hmm.
I think there is a space for devs to use AI and not have it undermine what they’re doing, is what I mean. And so I don’t want to label those people the same as the ones who’ll get AI to do everything. Otherwise, with how much AI is used on our behalf even without consent, the AI label will become the norm… at which point, it ceases to mean anything.
People want to know if AI was used at all. No matter which part of the process its used in, its replacing human labor. You could argue that AI generated art will have an impact on the human-created art that replaces it as well.
I would rather Steam tag games as AI and then the game can add a section in the description explaining exactly how it was used. You can decide if they were ethical about it or not at that point.
I don’t exactly disagree, it’s just that bad faith AI games will inevitably use this possible interpretation to excuse using AI much more extensively. If you want to flag AI use for like… googling stuff, then we should differentiate it from those who use AI assets in their final product.
Yes, a few textures. And how is that different from a procedural texture, also made by computer algorithms? And seriously, who gives a fuck if some brick texture is not handmade? What about textures made with photos? Are those handmade?
What a nothing burger of an argument, keep moving the goalpost brochacho you don’t even know which textures we are talking about
Photos are taken by people, procedural textures are made from algorithms made by people. AI generated textures are made using models fed with stolen work made by people, and don’t even get me started on the energy consumption on every step of the way.
Notice the difference?
But seriously, why do you give a fuck about the topic if you are just going to dismiss everything?
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