You're all wrong. Apart from the people who are right. But I didn't read their posts.

Anyway, can I just point out that unless metl threatens to de-moderator-ise me, I will post news items about people's puppies.

Thank you. 

"if you're spending the time/ideas on game stuff, spend it on your job."

What if you're a level designer by profession and you want to animate monsters in your spare time? Or an engine programmer who chooses to knock out a few Quake textures as a hobby?

It all sounds a bit silly to me. 

JPL: Peter Jackson is not directing the Halo movie, although he may be producing it.

OK, OK, sorry for the mistake... 

Zwiffle,

all of Valve's other products are just plain Made-In-America crap.

Have a little pride, son; Volvo, BMW, Jaguar, Honda, etc. have not been building those autoplants all over our landscape out of charity. 

by 'son' I don't mean it to be condescending. It just means I think of you as a red headed step child (I'm not sure if that phrase is regional or not). 

In Wisconsin that phrase refers to the child who you keep locked in the closet, scalp them, then rape them after sticking squirrels up their rectum. That child may or may not be yours O_O

BTW: I'm kidding. Mostly. 

raven is insecure and gets jealous of its mappers. That's why the office is way out on the tundra. When you get there, they give a speech about how Raven "has no guards... no fences... no life-sign sensors... only a transporter scrambling field" 

that's the one! 

If that's real, it's complete bullshit. And if I were someone else and in that field I'd fucking map otherwise anyway. Just use an alias, like anyone does and keep your shit covered.

That or I'd just not take the job. 

It's not that big a deal. Seriously, if I had the time/drive to work on anouther map, I'd rather see if there was a possiblity of getting a Q4 map pack together at work and doing something for that and get paid for it. But I don't. 

I'd still want to map for Quake or mess around with Winter Assault or AoE3 or something. Although if I were really happy with the project I was working on, were I in the business, it wouldn't be a big deal anyway. 

Zwiffle now you sound just like a Valve hater. They`v made two good games, cant deny that

Lun get over that really, it was like half year ago
and afterall it was you who started all the insulting

Phait: you map, yeah. You cant map even w/o such a contract ...

scamp is right, after mapping at work you dont really want to do that in your free time 

I DO hate Valve. Through and through. They've made some mediocre games people went ape-shit for, and a shitload of crap. That's it. 

They've made some mediocre games people went ape-shit for, and a shitload of crap.

You don't think perhaps the reason people went ape-shit was because, you know... they liked them? 

I know plenty of people who like cheap American beer.

Doesn't mean it's good beer. 

if 'good' simply means it tastes good to you, then arguably, so called 'crappy' cheap american beer is 'good' because the masses like it.

^_^;
*runs* 

So, what you're saying is George Bush is a good president because the majority voted in favor of him? (NOTE: No political comments, please--I'm just making an example.)

"Good" is not a measure of popularity. "Popularity" is a measure of popularity, and "good" is a measure of quality.

Definitions of "good" may vary, but then you're refering to opinion, and not actual quality.

What wrath was refering to was popularity, which has nothing to do with Zwiffle's claim that the games are mediocre. 

How do you measure actual quality then? I'm really interested in that. 

Explained here:
http://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/39.html 

bad wordage, should have read: if 'good' simply means it tastes good to you, then arguably, so called 'crappy' cheap american beer is 'good' because the masses like the taste of it.

what i was trying to get at is that since 'good' can't be quantified objectively, that these arguments were nothing but opinion. it was also an attempt to add weight to speedy's suggestion that zwiffle's arguements were specious.

in my opinion (because that's all it can ever be) i fail to see how duke3d had an enthralling SP experience... the whole game was meant to be a comedy, not exactly what i call enthralling.

i seriously do think HL pushed SP games forward by showing that it was possible to have a truly involving story and yet still be a shooter with action.

if you want to dole out your way of mesuring quality to determine if something's 'good', then maybe we can settle this now. :) 

i seriously do think HL pushed SP games forward by showing that it was possible to have a truly involving story and yet still be a shooter with action.

Marathon did that, came out before quake. Next! 

you took out my opinion with your opinion...

go you. :P 

What is this Half-Life everyone is talking about? Did it have any crates? 

How do you measure actual quality then?

I think that's irrelevant to the argument. However, to attempt to answer your question, one can gain an idea of something's quality by examining the positive and negative properties and results of the thing in question. Something with lots of good properties and few bad properties would be considered good, and something with few good properties and lots of bad properties would be considered bad.

For example, it's one thing to say "My math professor is good because he explains the concepts in detail and helps us when we have problems" or "My math professor is bad because he insults us and doesn't explain any of the concepts" whereas it's an entirely different thing to say "I like my math professor because it's fun to see him insult the other students" or "I hate my math professor because he isn't a stripper."

Obviously, quality can be difficult to determine in many circumstances, such as if the sum of the positive and negative is near zero.

But saying that a popular thing is automatically good is patently absurd, just as it's absurd to say that something that is not popular is bad. 

I would say Duke3d's SP was enthralling, because it was so revolutionary its detail and interactivity just threw you into the world and kept you there. There were so many new things to do other that just run, open door, etc etc.

I tend to base a game, good or bad, in quality, largely based on game-play aspects. For example, Half-Life was a steadily good game - it had some fairly impressive gameplay, I will admit that.

Counterstrike did not. Honestly, who here will say that Counterstrike is a good game? One, maybe two people?

Likewise, Half-Life 2 wasn't a good game. 6 years for facial animation and physics? 6 fucking years for that? The actual game development took something like 9 months I heard, and the rest of that was just tech. Reverse that, put 6 years gameplay and 9 months tech and the results would probably be different.

Look at Max Payne 2. Very disappointing. Huge graphics improvement, but gameplay remained the same, if not slightly worse because the game took 3 FUCKING HOURS TO PLAY. Why was it so short? How much time was spent on those cool bullet-time effects and comic book sequences and uber-cool graphics and super-involving storyline and how much attention was given to the actual GAME?

Take another example. UT200X. WTF? Why do they keep coming up with the same game with 2x better graphics every few years?

Some talked about Halo - they regurgitate sections of levels over and over. Gameplay is severely lacking. I enjoy lengthy games, but don't just copy and paste to make your game 20x longer than Max Payne. That's what speedmappers do.

I've kinda forgotten my point amid the myriad of examples. Gameplay or something. Yeah, something about how game developers should develop GAMES, and not just tech-showcases, like HL2.