Question about Originality vs. Insured Success

[Merc248]

Well... I've been talking to my dev. team for a little today. Yes, if you check our web page, we HAVE moved to the Unreal Tournament 2K4 engine, because we were too impatient to wait around for Half-Life 2. But anyway, I had a little talk with them. We were throwing ideas around, until the subject of having a large community to be successful came out. I told them that we basically should come up with a good, realistic game that does not in any shape clone Counter-Strike, which will then attract a more mature audience. The other two I was talking to wanted to implement whatever will attract a larger audience so that we will be successful, which also means attracting a community who can potentially be mostly whiny children, much like what I've observed in Counter-Strike.

I thought that this would be a good debate to discuss on. I, myself, would like to be as close to the design document and to also be original as I can with the idea that I have come up with, which is basically a realistic RTS/FPS hybrid. What are your guy's thoughts on this?

 

[The Dark Elf]

I think sticking in gimmicks just to attract players is a bad idea. It'll become full of pointless extra's that wont make much sense, just there for the first time fun factor, past that they'll be boring.

Try be original, never know unless you try, but doing whats been done before, in the case of CS clones WWII neofuturisticwannabematrixwilliamgibsoncrapmod etc. will at best be mediocre. So either choose to take a chance, maybe risk failing or maybe risk being the most popular mod, or do what everyone else seems to be doing and settling for one of the many hundreds of clones, so its the risky route or the safe route.

 

[Sprafa]

The best way to attract a large audience, or at least a large respect, is to be original--don't do anything that's already been done. Even if it doesn't work, you can always revise for a new release if you have to, and you'll at least get lots of respect for trying something new. If you want to settle for the non-original route, you're probably guaranteed a few hundred people who'll like your stuff, but the rest of the community will just ignore you.

I must add that most original projects, that well, don't work out prety good at first, many times become cult games and/or mods.

So, originality is the key. You get it, you get jackpot.

 

[ComradeBadger]

Originality. Make something that means a lot to a little amount of people, instead of something that means a little to a lot of people.

Labour of love.

 

[Shinobi]

the best thing to do in some respects is to do what you want and ignore the community,,,

this can either be disasterous or better than you could have ever dreamed,,


basically this argument (and many like it) is a grey area not black and white,,

the only rule you could really put to it is don't make an exact clone of another game

 

[torso boy]

originality......
go with how you want it, not what is sure to be popular.... because chances are, many people wil like it the same way

 

[Teddy]

c) none of the above

i think the most important thing is; make your game fun to play.

sometimes, the key to this is originality, and if you get this right, you're gaurenteed of getting a big fan base.. tho if you look at all the mods that made it big (think TF, CS, NS, DoD) they didn't have an elaborate plan to make their mod the ant's pants, they just made a fun game that everyone enjoyed.

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

There's also another factor:

simplicity

No-one wants 300 extra keys to bind, or 2000 marginally different weapons to choose from, or overcomplicated instructions. If your mod doesn't allow you to jump into a game and be up and running straight away, it sucks and you've failed..

 

[SpoBo]

So it should be original, fun to play and not too complicated ... I don't think that a lot of clones get popular. MODs that present the gamers with something new usually get some attention at the beginning but if it isn't fun enaugh most people stop playing after a week or so. So another thing is adding up to the gameplay with patches. Especially in the beginning so that the people know your mod is still alive.

This was the case with NS remember.. and that mod wasn't simple to learn.

 

[chapel]

Well, as pen said, Originality is Insured Success, by no means will it be CS status guaranteed, but people will respect you for it and give a a chance where if its just a clone, most people ignore it automatically.

Word of mouth is one of the best ways to have something spread, and in the case of the internet, theres the word of keyboard. An original game will warrant players that are looking for quality, not a clone which could be quality but obviously lacks creativeness.

Anyways, do you what you want, do it when you want, but whatever you do, please make sure you do it for you and not someone else, unless it will work out for the best.