Refining VS Innovating

edited in Questions and Answers
Been playing Torchlight 2, and I must say it is one hell of a polished game. There's almost nothing that I wanted to do that it wouldn't let me do, when I wanted to do it. And more. To me it was like they took Diablo 2, played it for a million years among a million people, and took all their wishes and made Torchlight 2.

Diablo 3, according to many, made changes that original Diablo 2 fans didn't find awesome at all, and as such weren't received as overwhelmingly positively as TL2 did.

Do you know Pandemic? That Flash game about disease? It was great. Then they made it an iOS game, and that was pretty ok. Then someone put out Plague Inc for iOS very shortly after (dev started way before Pandemic iOS was released) and it blew Pandemic out the water. I thought at first "OH NO RIP OFF GAME SCREW THEM", but then I played it and realised that it was superior and more polished in ways that Pandemic simply did not deliver. After like a year or two of internet fame.


So, I love TL2, and I enjoy hating on D3, but I can't help but think TL2 is a ripoff and D3 tried to innovate, which, to me, is plus points for Blizzard in a world of rehash sequels.

But that said, they really should have just released Diablo 3, not a game that isn't really Diablo... I'd say that TL2 is, item for item, scene for scene, pixel by pixel, a much more picture perfect Diablo 3.


Clearly Blizzard won't die from trying new things and failing, so they can afford it, so Indies are the ones who need to commercialise on existing successes.

Wait, what? Big dev houses are trying new things while indies are sticking to formulas? Did I hear myself right? It sounds completely insane, but that seems to be the evidence that comes from this (limited) comparison...


What do you think?

Comments

  • edited
    I find it weird that you feel Torchlight 2 is a rip off. It's been 16 years since the original Diablo and there have been dozens, probably hundreds, of games that have tweaked the formula in varying ways in the genre. It's such a big space and there are so many things that set the Diablo series and the Torchlight series apart (art style, theme, minigames, pet system, shared spells etc) and the things they share are also shared by a whole lot of other Diablo-likes (Titan-Quest, Dungeon Siege, Sacred etc).

    Blizzard generally speaking have iterated a lot in their development of their games and tried new things. It isn't surprising to me that they deviated from Diablo 2 with Diablo 3 (just like Diablo 2 deviated from Diablo 1). What was more surprising was that the deviation this time wasn't one that would please old fans.

    And as Torchlight was started by developers from Blizzard who didn't like the way Diablo 3 was going it's not surprising either that Torchlight feels like a more classic Diablo experience.

    I guess I'm saying that there is more than enough room in this genre for both games to exist on their own (as apposed to only existing in relation to each other).

    Also, because for some reason I'm nitpicky today (sorry), "innovation" means improvement... I'd contend that Diablo 3 didn't so much as innovate on the current state of Diablo-like as deviate from it. All the new elements in Diablo 3 were elements that made it less like a Diablo-like, and not strictly better. (I gather you agree)
  • edited
    Yes, I agree that it's perfectly reasonable to see both (and all of) the games on their own merit and strengths, but as everyone in the world has found, it was pretty impossible to talk about one American president without comparing him to the previous. Maybe in time? :P

    Not to take away from either game for being related to each other, I do appreciate both, in different ways.

    So, perhaps "rip off" was too strong a term to describe it - it stuck much more to the tried and tested than try new things, which D3 did (not strictly better). I do remember all those ARPG games you spoke of between D2 and TL2's time, and all of them added their own flavour to the formula.

    If I look at TL2, I can't help shake the feeling that I've seen almost every single enemy design, every single scene, setting before in D2, I guess that's also what I meant - it was much more derivative than having its own thing. Sure the new steampunk theme is prevalent and probably different enough, and mechanically there are lots new, but it...

    Argh, I'm not articulating myself very well. Bottom line, I love TL2, I feel it's a super-polished Diablo game rather than its own game.

    Does "innovation" mean improvement? To me innovation means new things, and in the context of the poles that I set up, innovation vs refinement is coming up with something more different vs taking the same but making it better. Like if the original was a sword, innovating would be to make an axe, where refinement would be a magically sharpened enchanted sword. The axe could also be magical and enhanced, but I feel that D3 was just an axe :P
  • I dunno, I think that the whole "indies are all about innovation" angle is a bit over-emphasised. Indies are far more motivated by the love of what they're trying to do, that can mean they're innovating, more often than not it means they're working on something that they personally feel isn't "done right" or that "nobody makes anymore".

    Sure, a lot of the indie games that have been widely successful are innovative, but there's still a lot of room for the games that are more about building familiarity and next-steps.

    I would argue that there's always innovation in pretty much any part of game development where you're not simply copying an existing implementation. Sure, it's definitely a spectrum, but I think the only real "refinement" that goes on is the kind of continuous tweaking that goes on in the large FB game franchises.

    Anyone have good ideas on how to measure or quantify that "innovation barrier" beyond which a game is "innovative"?
  • dislekcia said:
    Anyone have good ideas on how to measure or quantify that "innovation barrier" beyond which a game is "innovative"?
    We can use the noodle scale :P

    If there is a way to quantify this it will be either extremely complicated or extremely simple. Innovation is kind of a binary thing for me...either this thing is new, or this thing is not new.

    But for a game to be innovative it doesn't need to be all new. I think most games innovate in some form. Using something the players are used to, and the providing something new.

    The first video games were direct adaptations from board games. Same rules same game...but you didn't have to clean up afterwards, innovation! :P I don't think that a "barrier" would be appropriate to measure something like innovation. I rather envision a chart type system and having some rating out of some arbitrary number.
  • Well, to say we could quantify and qualify a game as being "innovative" means we should do the same for "refinement", in the context of this thread.

    I was actually saying that innovation and refinement are two equally important things that, to me, seemed to be championed by two different executions of the same original root concept.

    Besides, nothing is original anymore, everything is a remix :)
  • I'm of the opinion that innovation and refinement as used above are actually on the same scale, which is why I was saying there's a point for each game (that could well be different) where it breaks through an arbitrary barrier and becomes innovation in more people's eyes.

    The type of refinement I was talking about with the FB games is much closer to actual refinement, especially because they A/B test every idea and have actual metrics of how much each earns them, which allows a definitive choice instead of one based on gut feel. That's a very different way of making games.
  • I see what you mean, and I think TL2 might have been just as meticulous in that refinement of the genre, although I can't say that the pet system (it being able running back to town to sell stuff to maximise your time spent doing things and not running around between town and adventuring) came out of sound empirical research, it felt like it was aimed at refining the experience rather than creating something else. Same for shift clicking, etc.

    So Plague Inc was a refinement against Pandemic, and TL2 a refinement against D2.

    To me, D3 wasn't a refinement of D2, but it was an innovation.

    I only have my gut feel to go to for this, as much as I appreciate scientific evidence and methodology, I don't feel this needs to be scientific. If we were to do an Innovation in gaming award or something, I suppose we'd do it as scientifically as any other award scheme - get a bunch of gut feels together and aggregate :)
  • edited
    There were more of the original Diablo creators (from Blizzard North) working on Torchlight 2 than there were on Diablo 3.

    Diablo 3 was lead by a totally different team and produced in a different studio to that that created Diablo 2. Blizzard / Activision owns the franchise, but Diablo was always developed at Blizzard North (until Diablo 3).

    Diablo 2 was the core team of Torchlight 2's baby. It's no accident that they chose to make a game that built upon their previous game. I still find it weird that you seem to feel that is a bad thing that they didn't make a game very different from Diablo 2.

  • edited
    Thanks for the history! I didn't know that, so yeah it makes a lot of sense they turned out the way they did :)

    And nooooo I don't think it was "bad" that they didn't make it different, I was just noting that it was not a deviation, versus D3 which was a bigger deviation.

    So I might have miscommunicated my arbitrarily constructed scale with innovation on one side and refinement on the other - they don't correspond (in my view) with good or bad, TL2 was blue, D3 was red, and neither are better because of that coat of paint, the totality of each must be looked at to say if they're good or bad. (my enchanted sword example was probably off, but if something can be red AND blue it'd be err purple. And better? Or not? I'm not sure. It's definitely, to my mind, not linear like that)

    I LOVE TL2! My Outlander is *almost* at level 42 where he can finally access tier one skills :) The experience is smooth as butter and just so thoroughly enjoyable. Very little wasted time, very little boring moments, especially compared to other ARPGs that I've played. The pet system is ingenious in that it actually doesn't imbalance the game at all and adds so much convenience, from tanking a little for ranged characters and the running to town bit. I dig it :)
  • edited
    Sorry if I came across all defender-of-the-Torchlight-devs. I don't think they're perfect or anything. Just, I guess I'm happy that they chose to work on refining the Diablo formula knowing that Blizzard were going somewhere else with Diablo. If Diablo 3 was closer to its routes I'd probably by questioning Runic's decision not to change up their game.
  • So presumably the TL2 team saw that D3 was going in a direction that they didn't like, so left. If after they left, D3 decided to go into more polish of the original D2 formula and competed more directly with TL2, then I guess TL2 would have been in serious trouble.

    It's good that they both turned out how they did - we have both a game that we love, and a game that taught us how certain things sucks. In relation to the original D2 formal.

    It kinda also tells me that there is very little flexibility in bigass projects, but I guess they had no reason to think that their course wasn't a right one.
  • lol
    ...we have both a game that we love, and a game that taught us how certain things sucks.
    In your words D3's reason for existence is as a cautionary tale.
  • Well, cautionary tale and huge money-spinner for Activilizzard. Hang on...

    Also, the Blizzard North people left a long time before D3's development ramped up in any way. Remember that half of Blizzard North went off to form Flagship which gave us Hellgate London. Wanna talk about that from an innovation perspective? Because, well, Borderlands...
  • edited
    So Hellgate London was by the same people as Borderlands? Or just inspired Borderlands? Cos (for me) Hellgate was awful, Borderlands 1 was great, I'm looking forward to (eventually getting to) Borderlands 2. I'd definitely say that's innovation, that deviation from D2 formula.
    In your words D3's reason for existence is as a cautionary tale.
    Caution that you still take care of gameplay before money factors, but I do half see it as a company willing to experiment with something new, and plus points for that. Even if it turned out to be money-grabbing? I mean even all these facebook timer games could be called innovation when they started. Did everyone watch the 2010 talk by Dice guy Jesse Schell about the whole social gamification thing? Very cool (talk)?

    So I wasn't talking about "innovation is good", I was just msuing that a big company innovated while a smaller one chilled and refined :) Without knowing the history behind with the people.
  • edited
    I still feel funny about that word "innovate" when regarding Diablo 3.

    I mean, I just don't feel it was that inventive. My understanding of "innovation" is that the new product, as a result of the innovation, should contain a new element or feature that gives them an advantage in the marketplace. Diablo 3 feels reductive to me, not inventive.

    All the changes in Diablo 3 feel more like softening the edges and maximizing money sucking. And although that is technically innovation in a broad sense it barely seems to be innovation in the "here's something actually new that someone might like" sense.

    I'm saying I think of "innovation" as tasty new features or interesting twists on a formula. And the changes to D3 I don't see that way. A feature no-one wants isn't innovation (in my understanding) it's a mistake.

    Or at least: "the unwanted feature is arrived at through a process of innovation, but it was later found to be fumbling and not innovation." is a sentence that makes sense to me.

    I know I'm talking semantics . I do know what you're meaning by "innovation" with regards to Diablo 3 and Blizzard. I just can't extricate the positive connotations from innovation in my mind (in my mind innovation is always positive).

    In my mind the innovative product is always an improvement over the old product.

    From Wikipedia: "Innovation is the development of new customer value through solutions that meet new needs, unarticulated needs, or old customer and market needs in new ways"

    I'm saying I see Diablo 3 as having less value, not more.

    (Obviously a lot of people do like Diablo 3 a lot. I'm not saying it has no value, just that the biggest changes, like removing skill trees, didn't add value and therefore can't be termed "innovations". Things like health potions as pickups do add value, but that was standard in the Diablo-like genre before D3 and so isn't an innovation either. Though the distinctive D3 graphics are generally agreed to be an unambiguous improvement over D2 and D3's peers and so can be said to be innovative).
  • I think this is just becoming a semantic thing cos you think I'm giving D3 positive points for something that players don't like. Right?

    Taking away the skill tree could be an innovation...

    The wiki definition doesn't say that it has to be positively received for it to be a innovation, for example maybe one of the "new needs, unarticulated needs" was perceived by Blizzard as people "needing" simpler interaction and no skill tree. It certainly echoes how FFXIII - everyone hated it, but it was certainly "innovative" in terms of dumbing everything down. They thought everyone wanted a "gears of war simple" Final Fantasy, and it turned out they were wrong, at least according to some fans.

    To me, having a unified, "real" economy is the innovation in the not-MMO space, maybe I'm talking from a very lack of experience, but the crosssection between a "real economy" and an ARPG I think hadn't happen before, er, right? Or maybe I'm just plain wrong :) That was where I was coming from, but if other people have done it then nevermind I'm wrong about that assumption :)
  • edited
    There are other words that mean new and not strictly better, like "experimental" or "unconventional".

    We have enough information now to be able to evaluate whether the breaks in convention in D3 are for the better or make little difference or hurt it. How it's received is now moot when we talk about whether D3 is innovative or just unconventional.
  • OK I don't mind saying it's experimental :) D3 was experimental, and TL2 was refinical :P

    Actually I hadn't played TL1, and someone I was chatting with today said TL1 had pretty much ALL the systems of TL2 which I found so amazingly refined......
    ...
    So I guess TL2 wasn't THAT much refinement, TL1 was. I had incomplete information!
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