Of course. :P

Could you wait a couple of weeks or so? It won't go into beta testing until later this week. ;)

One thing that I found funny when reading this thread was that I recently in another forum argued against someone holding more or less the opposite view: "All commercial games are uninspired crap without any creativity." (Or something like that.) Go figure.

I do.

1) You need the game to be able to make a mod. I'm not interested in playing HL2, so the only reason for me to buy it would be so that I could make a mod.

And more importantly 2) You need the game to play a mod. I think only a small part of my target audience owns HL2, and I don't think they'll buy it just to play my game. My ego isn't that big.

Any statement that takes the form "all X are Y" is, by its very nature, difficult to defend. To disprove such a statement, all that needs to be provided is a counterexample. To hold that such a statement is always true, however, one must prove that there exist no counterexamples. Otherwise, the statement is merely speculation rather than fact.

Therefore, simply by virtue of making an "all X are Y" statement (rather than, say, an "all the X I've played are Y" statement), you should not be surprised that we are having an easier time attacking your position than you are defending it.

While that is true, you cannot avoid the fact that the adventure game community seems to be cursed (others may call this a blessing) with a very long-term case of optimism. No matter what happens, the community seems to find a way to bounce back from whatever seems to be going on in the market.

"Adventure games aren't dead! They're just, uh, sleeping!! Yeah, sleeping!" This seems to be the general atmosphere of the community these days. I'll admit that there are a few adventure games out there, but they're not all that great really. There's no way they can compare to the classics like the Sierra Quest games and the Moneky Island games. Also, many of the current "adventure games" these days seem to be more hybrids then true adventures, combining strategy and mini-games together.

Let's face the facts, folks. The genre as a whole is dying. You may call me a pessimist and a killjoy, but it's the truth. Adventure games are great, but they'll never return to their position as the reigning genre. Basically, I'm saying that this sickening optimism is what's keeping the community afloat, not an influx of fangames. I'm not saying that fangames are horrible (you'll noe that I work for a fanproject), but amateur games alone cannot keep a genre alive.

No, in fact, you're just not making sense.
I still see many AGs in shelves (as many, as, say, RPG), and whether you like them or not is not a very good criterium to judge their quality, or whether the genre is dying.
Also, they never were a reigning genre.

There may be less quality AGs these days, but there are no intrinsect reasons why it should always be the case, as the AG production has never stopped. Still Life for example is very close to yesterday's finest games, and Myst 4 is in my opinion the best in the series, to pick my two recent favorites.

I'd still be interested in hearing AudioSolider's review of 5 Days a Stranger...

Yeah, I'll get around to it.

They may never have reigned, but they were certainly more prominent in years past. I agree they're not dying, though. It's just a niche market now.

Of course it does. Niche recreation is almost always kept afloat by communities in some form or another. Whether it's comic books, models, D&D, etc. These things carve out an enduring existence for themselves that defies big market popularity.

Adventures not returning to former status is irrelevant. No, they almost certainly won't. But who cares? The only thing that matters is quality games. I think there's plenty of room for improvement in that regard, mind you, both professional and amateur. But that's another matter.

I'd argue that we have plenty of people who would like to play a well-made adventure on the Source engine, who actually have bought and played Half-Life 2. The cancellation of Sam & Max 2 was reach a far broader audience than just this niche we like to call adventure gamers. It reached the likes of sites such as Shacknews, where it received loads of comments from people who normally devote their time to first-person shooters.

But that doesn't really matter, as there are loads of engines available. Free and commercial, that could be used. There are able programmers, modellers, animators out there. There's no reason amateur games need to be behind in technology, as AudioSoldier keeps trying to prove. The technology is available to them, and I've seen at least a handful of competent modellers in my time of indie game-playing.

Certainly. There I agree, and I want to do a 3d game myself one day. 2d is easier, though.

Btw, Ankh uses the freely available open source Ogre graphics engine. Ogre is one of the 3d graphics engines I keep an eye on and might use in the future. It seems capable, but requires knowledge to use.

I'd call adventure games a reigning genre in the late eighties. Wouldn't you?

Art has been lofted into this broad category. Traditionally speaking, games aren't art - they aren't in my mind, and they shouldn't be in anyone's - but people enjoy branding about lofty terms so that they can feel good about their pastime (and/or job).

Something like Psychonauts could be called a game with vivid artistic vision because it breaks down the boundaries of what we "expect" in a videogame and genuinely tries to do something new. But if we're to call one game art, we must call them all art, and I'm not happy with that.

Why not? After all, for instance, there's a lot of crappy films out there, yet AFAIK it's generally accepted nowadays that films are art. IMHO, art doesn't have to be "good" to be art.

In any case, you may want to read through this previous thread we had on the matter, since we already covered a lot of that ground.

After all, this is getting off-topic... I'm still interested in hearing an actual rebuttal to some of the replies people have made to your criticisms. :P

Peace & Luv, Liz

What is art? This question has been asked over and over again. There used to be distinct seperations of "low" and "high" art. However, since the advent of post-modern doctrine, the lines between what is high or low art have been blurred.

I see computer games as a form of art, it's self-expessionism after all, even if big-money is at the root of it often.

Indeed Jeysie, I'm awaiting AudiSoldiers replies to the on topic conversation. Since this IS his thread I would think he'd make the effort to back up his arguments.

And yes, games are art. Everything in the world is art to some degree.

*twitches*

LucasArts, Electronic Arts, Rainbow Arts, Game Arts, Longbow Digital Arts...

Yep, games are a form of art :P

--Erwin

Technically I think that the "games are art" argument is really just a matter of personal opinion. Some people wouldn't consider a glob of paint on the sidewalk art, but other people do. Same thing with whether games are art.

No. There were plenty of other popular games besides adventures even then. Just less selection overall. The word "reigning" is silly. No genre reigns over another just because it's more popular.

Oh, shouldn't they now?
Why? Because you say so?

But, regardless, everybody is entitled to their view.
If you don't think they are, then that's fair enough.
I respect your view.

In my personal view, it sounds a little like you're just making attention-seeking arguments.