The headline is omitting a vital part of the article, namely the “one ingredient”. You have to read the artivke to finish the title, which can be a definition of clickbait.
For me, it didn’t trigger my clickbait alarm. Yes there’s a hook there but I’m already interested in Kowloon City, Minecraft and 3D design so I was happy to read it.
Maybe if the title had put “: people”, at the end then it would have been completely above board, but it’s still a far cry from something like “The New Minecraft Map That Recreates a A Demolished 90’s Era Enclave Has One Super Important Thing Missing!”, followed by pages of ads.
We’re just used to it by now, but the title is phrased in a way to make you curious what the author meant by “what’s important in 3D level design”. I wouldn’t call this clickbait, but it’s definitely written in a way that intentionally omits the central conclusion. A better article title would say “Its lack of residents show how important this is for 3D level design”.
I read the article. It appears to deliver on the promise of the headline pretty completely. What is promised is a little bit too nuanced and complex to be neatly encapsulated in the headline any other way. The headline also isn’t sensationalized or misrepresentative of the content. And, honestly, the reason I think most people are clicking is for the Kowloon part, not the level design part. Are you just upset because it sounds a little bit like a LinkedIn status in its construction?
I’d orefer a title to summarize the article so that I know whether it’s worth my time investment to actually read it at all. Now, I’m put if by the blayant cliff hanger at the end of the title.
It’s a very good summary of the article. The things the author reconsidered were pretty nuanced, and trying to describe them in a headline without making the headline even longer than it is.
Would you have liked this better?
“This Minecraft map that recreates Kowloon Walled City, one of history’s most notorious slums, made me realize that 3D level design isn’t just about the complexity or the environmental challenge, but about the internal lives of the people who live there and the way that the game implies a greater reality that exists beyond the confines of the camera’s field of view”
“This, it should be stated, was not the objective of Sluda’s build. But it nonetheless made me think about what I deem important in virtual architecture and level design more broadly. My favourite games are always those that give me a complex, natty 3D space to unpick, like Dishonored 2’s Stilton Manor, Hitman’s Sapienza, and Thief: Deadly Shadows’ Shalebridge Cradle. But playing Sluda’s map made me realise these levels are more than just environmentally challenging sequences of rooms and corridors. They say something about the people who lived in those spaces, exuding their virtual history from their grimy walls, spooky attics, and beautifully recreated gelato shops.”
Yeah, but…
Minecraft will never achieve the writer’s design requirement; immersive sim level design philosophy is where he is aiming, where highly environmental detail for storytelling and possibly some competent AI, both hostile and friendly, to support the immersion.
MC is just a block-by-block construction, competent with building form, and it offers some simple decoration, and no more; I can’t see how it is a fair comparison.
No, Minecraft cannot deliver that kind of experience.
Go check out the video of The Golem city in Mankind Divided if you want to know what the writer is seeking, which is also inspired by Kowloon Walled City.
Secondly, the interior details of Kowloon Walled City have always been pretty sparse on the internet, Sluda has to imagine all of them, that is not the objective of the build.
There’s a video of Kowloon Walled City from a university student (Suenn Ho) if anyone wants to see how it looks like from the inside. It’s incredible how people even managed to live there.
Hoping to cover costs solely from cosmetics is a pie-in-the-sky fancy and they knew that, the only way that works is if your game blows up in the way that only those rare, 0.01% of games do. Saying they expected that to work out was some fucking bullshit. I sympathize with their plight, it’s obvious that if the options are sell DLC or shut down the studio, you sell DLC, but it shouldn’t have happened like this.
They were dishonest at worst or brutally naive at best from the start. I’m willing to accept that latter simply because these were originally Reddit people who wanted to make their own mark on the genre, but it’s still inexcusable. I have zero involvement in the industry and I could tell you that was not gonna work out.
I totally agree with ditching a game over MTX, but doesn’t PoE also want to stick its hand in your wallet? Making a game more restrictive to sell “quality of life” is just as bad as selling a character.
Everything is cosmetic last I checked aside from stash tabs, which granted should be earnable in-game, but it’s nothing like an entirely MTX-only class. I do wish the game had a transmog system though at least, even Diablo 4 does, and we all know how Blizzard is.
Personally I’d call it buy to play with an unlimited demo and optional mtx. Back when I played it, the default stash tab wasn’t remotely enough, but after spending 20 euros I had enough tabs for all my needs and I then played several seasons without spending anything more. It’s still the best freemium model that I’ve ever encountered imo.
Hat stores and “buy more space to hoard the loot we design the game to make you need” mtx shouldn’t be given the free pass they get, especially by players that go nuclear over paid character DLC.
That’s rough. I tend to cycle in and out of games (particularly ARPGs).
Paid DLC content acts as a deterrent to me going back to a game that I only play fairly casually. Not saying that I won’t do it, but it does raise the bar on my expectations.
Paid DLC that is simply less content and more texture pack is just bullshit. Paid DLC like Grim Dawn xpacs are content I’m more than happy to pay for. So it’s all relative but this for me is dookie
That’s Runescape 3,except they are removing it all. Osrs has membership (effectively required for the game) and you can buy bonds so other players can buy membership with in game money. That’s it.
Mmos and arpgs are intrinsically linked by their gameplay loops. Admittedly, this can vary to a greater or lesser degree depending on the specific games being compared, but Diablo 2 was, in many ways, proto-WoW.
MMORPGs have pretty different mechanics alone. Just because most are WoW clones doesn’t mean that is the only thing. EVE for example is very different.
As soon as Krafton bought them out it wasn’t just downhill from there, it was a steep drop off a cliff. The game had so much promise but got royally fucked.
They should have just put a fork in it when it became very apparent early on it was too ambitious for the studio to handle. And that was long before it blew up in popularity. Now the game has been unprofitable for the past few expansions and their owners are coming to collect. Live service was a massive, greedy mistake as Bungie is also not learning with D2.
After ditching D2 last year well past the 10k hour mark, I’ve been bouncing around a bunch of different games, mostly working through the backlog but also looking for a long-term grind to scratch that same itch. Out of everything I’ve tried, PoE2 and Warframe feel like the only ones doing live service “right”, especially the latter. Between both games, the only MTX gripe I have is PoE2’s stash tabs.
Last Epoch had a ton of potential but the team were in way over their heads and forced to start cashing in, and the Krafton buyout was the nail in the coffin. It feels like they just flat out didn’t have the budget to keep it going.
Yeah, we’re in the same boat. I’m going through the backlog, but I have yet to truly find my comfort food even though those two games are excellent. Especially PoE2.
Regardless, agree on your points. The latter two franchises have shown that live-service can be done well. Though I still don’t quite get how Warframe pulls it off… I guess it’s that they never broke their model while Bungie… you know.
For Last Epoch, the campaign wasn’t even finished and then suddenly. Don’t write checks you can’t cash, I guess.
Ah. I didn’t know they said that. It’s definitely shitty to go back on that promise. Although in a vacuum, I think this is the kind of non-cosmetic content that’s somewhat acceptable to me as paid DLC. It’s not a competitive game and assuming the class is balanced, it’s just adding content that gives more variety. I’ve been fine with paid DLC in other big games as long as it’s a worthwhile amount of content for the price and it’s sold in a straightforward way without any funny business. Given that this game has online co-op, I think it makes sense that they’re gonna keep the content expansion free so it doesn’t divide people who would want to play together (also I guess there is trading, but I’m a CoF player so…) and then this is something that mostly just affects someone’s individual experience. Like if you were going to be happy enough to keep playing the game with existing classes, then this doesn’t really affect you.
So in principle I’m ok with this… but like I said, the bigger issue is them going back on their word.
Not defending last epoch but Grim Dawn did not feel complete. The base game story ‘ends’ on a complete cliffhanger quest the way a TV show Season 1 ends.
I like Grim Dawn but it pisses me off that the base game is so cheap when the studio knows the experience is super incomplete without the 3x as expensive expansions.
Valid. I just cannot play ARPGs absent a decent enough story. I’ve dropped a few due to uninteresting grinding, but I understand that is an appeal in and of itself to other gamers.
Grim Dawn was an excellent and finished game on release, and said DLCs came out years later via DLCs that acted as expansions to the campaign.
Last Epoch doesn’t even have a complete story, just some unfinished tripe with no real lore and oh here’s a bunch of alternate versions of how the unfinished thing you encountered could have happened differently.
They’re not even in the same class. It’s why I have 440 hours on Grim Dawn and would play it more still. I dropped LE at 170 hours and don’t really see any reason to play more. Hell, Last Epoch had a cash shop before the game even left Early Access. It feels like the development and costs were mismanaged out of the gate. I waited to buy it on discount.
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