(after typeing this and looking back I realize its extreamly tangent prone, like all of my rants, reports, papers, etc
I got prey for $50, got 4 hours of gameplay out of it
I got Oblivion for $50 and got 2 hours of gameplay out of it before it got dull
I got BF2 for $30 and spent a day playing it and haven't touched it since
I got FEAR for 50 and got 5 hours of gameplay out of it
lemme back track for a second now, back to, say, 1997, when I got doom, I've gotten about 50 hours from it and the mods me (in anchinet times) and others made for it and some random hours spent playing MP
Got Populous the begginning for $30 at a toy's R us back in 98, got at least 30 hours out of that
Got Half-life for $35 (I think, whatever it was when it was released) and have so far pulled at least 200 hours out of it, apx. 70 from the SP and the rest from mods, not to mention probably 1000's of hours in the Half-life comunities. then you have the expansions and such, not to mention all the maps and mods i've made and played starting in 2001.
(valve has already got the best money I ever spent)
fast forward again to around the present.
I got HL2 for 50 and HL ep 1 for 20, that $70 has given me 40 hours of SP gameplay and alot of MP.
but, remember how I got fear and prey for 50 and only got about 10 hours combined from them?
I think valve has quite a few things going for them that those guys didn't.
now, in line with that, let me tell you the cause of all this declineing play quality, and time. it is because of
Piss
Poor
Level Design
not mapping mind you, those two words have evolved into two different things.
and if no one understands what I mean by that, let me explain.
art creation takes time, yes. but so many levels have all these custom art requirements. each individual map requireing the time of an art team.
now look back at HL and doom and such, there was a baseline of art created over the cycle, custom things were made when you couldn't creativly use what you already had.
and not only have level designers lost the imagination to play around with some rotations and resizing and light to make something new out of something old, they have lost creative design entirely. none of the maps are designed around gameplay anymore. there all based around a gimmic, or a half-assed plot. its like they are trying to shift games to being movies with the plot lines. you can't build a game around a plot line alone, the level designers have to use what everyone else gives them to make a fun game.
more later if I feel like it