P&C was only dumbing things down because of how the keyboard controls worked, when you had to type in commands. And it actually did dumb some games down a little bit... using text commands was great fun, too.
Larry 7 was awesome this way since it let you type in text commands... I just wish it had used that feature more than it did.
But overall... point & click was a lot more convenient, in my opinion.
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people thought point-and-click was dumbing down adventure games at the time, when in fact it was just taking out a whole heap of annoyance.
Point being, point and click was new at one point and it's usual to treat new things with suspicion especially when they are in the place of an old thing which is well-liked. But in 20 years people will be wondering why anyone cared about this. And moaning that keyboard/mouse controls are being replaced by control by thought :P
That's not all it was doing, though. When used well, text input could be used in ways very hard to do with point & click.
Yes, of course, each method always has its own set of specialities. You could just as easily say 'When used well, point & click can be used in ways very hard to do with text input'. Whenever there is change you need to compromise, the question is whether there is a net gain of advantages - which is up for debate. I say the advantages of TT's new control scheme outweigh the compromises it has to make, others will disagree.
Yeah, you could look at this to being similar to the switch back then, only the other way around.
Changing from text input to P&C sacrificed some complexity in favor of more convenient controls.
Which is the opposite of what I think Telltale is doing - sacrificing more convenient controls for better looking games. Obviously, good or bad controls is highly subjective, so that's just my opinion.
However - I'm thankful they included a method to play the game using only the mouse.
Whenever there is change you need to compromise, the question is whether there is a net gain of advantages - which is up for debate. I say the advantages of TT's new control scheme outweigh the compromises it has to make, others will disagree.
I know it's just semantics, there's more than just the negative connotation of what you mean if you call something a "compromise". I still have to address that, as it sounds exactly like that from the context - that TT's direct control scheme is a "surrender" to the realization that it's just not going to gell with their style of 3D visuals. Maybe it even is! However, I find these discussions trying to the debate the merits of direct controls vs. point&click a little odd, as they tend to view both of those as slightly different things on the very same scale.
I also know I've said it elsewhere, but: They're not. Not in any kind of way. One cannot be simply called "better" than the other. P&C is awesome, it's as intuitive as it'll ever get. But it's also a passive way of controlling a character - you click and he moves. Whereas direct control involves a more, you guessed it, direct way of controlling a character. Metaphorically speaking you get to step right into his shoes and explore an environment for youself. I find it absurd that many an adventure developer pretty much ignores all the physical sensation of exploring an environment only some form of direct control allows for upfront. Yeah, I know, "market realities" and so such. Infer from that as you wish.
Anyway, this isn't an argument made against point&click in any kind of way. I love the classics exactly as they are, thankyouverymuch. I can happily sit down with any worthwile modern point&click game there is, luckily. There's tons and tons and tons of them. It's just that decisions like that should come from some kind of idea what one's trying to achieve with a game rather than a decision to abide to some perceived de facto standard upfront. Some would argue that the latter is what adventure gaming is all about anyway these days.
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people thought point-and-click was dumbing down adventure games at the time, when in fact it was just taking out a whole heap of annoyance.
Point being, point and click was new at one point and it's usual to treat new things with suspicion especially when they are in the place of an old thing which is well-liked. But in 20 years people will be wondering why anyone cared about this. And moaning that keyboard/mouse controls are being replaced by control by thought :P
I wouldn't mind if point&click gets removed by a better alternative but so far i haven't seen this alternative. The current implementations all have their very own disadvantages. Tweaking one/some of the better methods to a state were it's sweet and enjoyable, beside of offering more than just one way to steer for different minded people, would be the way to go.
I wouldn't mind if point&click gets removed by a better alternative but so far i haven't seen this alternative. The current implementations all have their very own disadvantages. Tweaking one/some of the better methods to a state were it's sweet and enjoyable, beside of offering more than just one way to steer for different minded people, would be the way to go.
P&C has its own fair share of disadvantages just as much. Especially in a 3D game world with cinematic camera angles.
But it's also a passive way of controlling a character - you click and he moves. Whereas direct control involves a more, you guessed it, direct way of controlling a character. Metaphorically speaking you get to step right into his shoes and explore an environment for youself. I find it absurd that many an adventure developer pretty much ignores all the physical sensation of exploring an environment only some form of direct control allows for upfront.
I'm right with you on this. Looking back on the (mostly Sierra) adventure games I played in my youth, they were fun and amazing but I never felt like I was a part of the game world. I could never achieve any real suspension of disbelief because I was more or less issuing orders to a character instead of being that character. It could be that I have trouble getting into things, though.
I think most of you are really going to like the sequence at the end of Wallace & Gromit 104. It really shows off the kind of suspenseful, visceral puzzles you can wrangle out of direct control with a careful design.
@Yare: I assume you're not referring to the early Sierra games where you had to use the keyboard to move? Even so, to be fair, you only pressed an arrow key and he walked until you told him to stop, rather than holding the key down. A concept my wife can never seem to remember when she plays older Sierra games as she keeps holding the key down lol.
Your own perception of this doesn't really matter so much. Thing is, direct control is not an alternative option to point&click. And vice versa. Their core ideas are as fundamentally different as their look and feel is.
I think most of you are really going to like the sequence at the end of Wallace & Gromit 104. It really shows off the kind of suspenseful, visceral puzzles you can wrangle out of direct control with a careful design.
Looking forward to seeing some of that appearing in Tales too!
@Yare: I assume you're not referring to the early Sierra games where you had to use the keyboard to move? Even so, to be fair, you only pressed an arrow key and he walked until you told him to stop, rather than holding the key down. A concept my wife can never seem to remember when she plays older Sierra games as she keeps holding the key down lol.
I suggested Telltale add that, but maybe it's too complicated for people these days?
Not sure it would work well in a 3D environment anyway, though.
Anyway, I always liked that system.
However - if you played the old Sierra games using a joystick, you had to hold it to the side all the time to keep the character walking.
Ok I'm going to add my 0.02€ (since I'm in Europe :P) to the discussion:
I was terribly excited when I heard Telltale say they were going to make a new Monkey Island. I followed E3 pretty closely and the one thing that really made me go bananas was Tales of Monkey Island. In the day of the announcement I came to this website to see what the pre-order price was and I had the game ready to check-out within seconds but I decided to check the forums first and I find people talking about this new combo control scheme of keyboard/mouse and I took the game out of the cart and decided to wait until the demo right there on the spot.
I mean: I loved Sam & Max, I have the 2 full seasons and I love them. Played them twice and I'm thinking of playing a third time to see if I missing anything else but I decided not to pre-order Tales of Monkey Island (and haven't bought it yet even though I bought The Secret of Monkey Island SE within minutes of the Steam release). Why? Cause I tried the demos of Strong Bad and Wallace and Grommit first.
Don't get me wrong, Strong Bad didn't have any control issues, I just didn't like that particular style of humour, but Wallace and Grommit is a completely different story. I'm not a big fan of the old Wallace and Grommit shows so I wasn't very interested in the game in the first place but the controls... Oh dear the controls! The controls got me even more put off the game that I quit and uninstalled the demo without even getting halfway through it. Sure you can say I did it cause I didn't like Wallace and Grommit and it might just be true since I loved Grim Fandango so let's skip ahead to tales.
I installed tales and took roughly twice the time I usually take to finish the puzzles in normal adventure games... Heck, I misclicked so many times in Elaine's boat it wasn't even funny... The moving camera, the constant switching between mouse and keyboard (and I like PC FPS!!!), the weird item combine interface... It was so annoying I'm feeling completely cheated... But you want to know why I fell like that? Cause I loved the writing and the characters... I really, really liked that small intro to the story and I'll probably buy the game if I can play it better with my 360 controller, that's why I feel I'm being exploited. I want to play the game cause the story sounds interesting, I want to support Telltale cause I love Sam & Max, Monkey Island and most of the old Lucas Arts adventure games but the controls are delaying my decision to buy the game for the second time.
Please Telltale, if you can't give us a patch to fix the controls (I won't even ask for it) please give us your word that you will take our opinions into consideration.
Just look at Monkey Island SE: it's not a perfect game, far from it. It's got some really bad animations, it's got an annoying "feature" that prevents people from skipping text without reverting to the classic mode and yet I still want to play the game and I didn't give a seconds thought whether I should buy the game in the first place. It was P&C, the classic system that has been working for what? 20 years now?
I just needed to get this off my chest but I'll probably still give my money to Telltale... I just might not give it now at full price and wait for some kind of sale cause of the control scheme... Call it nitpicking, call it being afraid of change or stuck in the old days but that's just how I fell.
I think most of you are really going to like the sequence at the end of Wallace & Gromit 104. It really shows off the kind of suspenseful, visceral puzzles you can wrangle out of direct control with a careful design.
Sorry for quoting you again, but: Design like that is of paramount importance to make some more people in doubt consider. You'll never win over anyone, that's just normal business, as every design decision is going to alienate someone. It's rather easy to spot why somebody would think the abandonment of p&c is merely a cosmetic thing as is now - except that it isn't cosmetic but yeah.. been there done that. Except for camera work and the one or other narrative trickery* here and there you're not doing anything significantly different from your 2d/3d p&c peer group so far. Be it puzzles, narrative or else - the more you lot come up with things that clearly aren't possible to do in point&click the more the voices of doubt shalt perish. And there must be a bloody lot you cannot do with this given how different direct controls and point&click really are at their very core. The "problem" is that you're doing a Monkey Island game, and people's expectations are all set like the sails of a pirate's ship well on its course to the titular island. Damn.
*
Like when you're controlling Guybrush along the planks of Flotsam for the first time, the camera cutting up so close that you can't quite make out the biggish thing in the background, the game taking over the controls of Guybrush without you even noticing, and Guybrush suddenly stopping and going "Hoopla!" as the Screaming Narwhal appears onscreen. And you doing the same. Unless you've already spotted the countless pre-release screenshots before playing, that is. :shifty:
I don't know if this has been discussed in one of theese point and click topics, BUT here's why point and click is in fact inferior to direct control, in my opinion.
I was playing Sam and Max 103 today and I was having real problems
getting the "listening device" from the walls while Sam was moving
. Every time I was trying to click it, the pointer would go a little off because the camera was moving. And since it was so little, there were only a few pixels to click on it. So it got pretty annoying after a while. Yes, I have tried to use it on all characters.
And when you use the "listening device", it automatically puts the characters away from the person you are using the item on, so you need to move back to it.
So you have to stop before you can click on it. But even then the camera still moves a little before it stops.
Now a few other times, I was trying to get some objects that were situated behind a table or desk. When clicking "above" the desk (to make Sam go behind it), he would actually walk back in front of the table. You don't feel like you have control over what is going on.
Other times, Max would get in front of important objects and I would not be able to click on them because he was covering that part of the screen with his body. Is this what we really want in a game? In my opinion, all objects should be "usable" when they are on screen. If the mouse pointer would move on a 3D axis then this wouldn't be problematic. But since that's not possible, direct control with hot spot cycling is superior in this aspect.
Now I'm not saying to banish mouse control. There are many people who like it and I respect that. But changes to this method of input are required and ToMI's mouse control should be an acceptable compromise for point and clickers.
You can always left click and move your mouse in the direction you wanna walk, then also click right button to run... i have no problem with the movement either using ASDW or mouse.
I would also like to express my disappointment regarding the lack of point&click controls. I seems silly that I have to drag with the mouse or use the keyboard to move Guybrush around, when he's quite capable of walking over to any object of interest by clicking at it. Additionally, the changing camera angles mean that the directions may suddenly change, for example making it hard to move Guybrush to the bow of the ship at the beginning of the first episode.
The mouse drag interface is considerably more ackward than the keyboard interface -- sometimes the ring is almost horizontal making it harder to move Guybrush forwards and backwards -- something which became a real problem recently as I injured my right had, preventing me from using either a mouse or a keyboard with that hand for the time being. For those with permanent injuries, games like these are among the few kinds that they can ever hope to play.
Someone mentioned that there are technical difficulties with the point&click interface. I find that difficult to believe, since Guybrush will already walk to where I click, as long as I click an object he can interact with. If some prefer the existing interface, I don't see any reason why we couldn't have both.
I feel like we're beating a dead horse at this point, but after loving chapter 2 (except for the hint system) my only real complaint was the controls. I don't know why they chose to make it controlled with the keyboard, and perhaps it's because I spent too much time playing the game, but it's just really uncomfortable and actually becomes painful after a while.
I was forced to switch to controlling it with the mouse alone and I find that horribly awkward too. Sam & Max worked fine with point and click control, it really needs to come back for the next Monkey Island
The new control system allows for everything we saw in the point'n'click control system, while also allowing more interesting camera angles, and so on. So...yeah, you guys might be more confortable with point'n'click controls, but they're arguably inferior to Tales' system (when done well, and TTG usually does them well).
For example, in Sam and Max:
A close-up, 'dramatic' camera angle like that would have to either be in a cutscene or a fixed camera poisition, since point'n'click controls wouldn't allow you to move from that location.
How would you move to the left, or closer to the screen? They would have to add arrows to the edge of the screen, and you'd end up with a jarring camera transition everytime you moved around.
Alternately, in ToMI:
You can have shots like this (or better yet, imagine the bridge-crossing) where you'd fully be able to move him around the area, because your movement isn't limited by stuff in the background that you can click on. This allows them to have a fully dynamic camera, and we end up with a better looking game - without losing out on the contols, since everything else still handles exactly the same as a point'n'click game.
I understand that some of you might not be used to action-y games where you directly control the character's movements, but I'm sure by now (two episodes in) it should be second-nature to most of you. It's really not all that complex or different, just better.
*Edit* Oh, and I personally found the controls totally intuitive after the first few seconds of the first episode. If anything, I think I prefer them to actively clicking everywhere - it arguably beats the old-school method of clicking on the ground to make Guybrush move. Imagine how much less awkward SMI's grog puzzle would've been if the puzzle solving and movement controls had been separate.
Comments
Larry 7 was awesome this way since it let you type in text commands... I just wish it had used that feature more than it did.
But overall... point & click was a lot more convenient, in my opinion.
But - it's not something that bothers me anymore, I like the new mouse dragging controls so I'm happy
Point being, point and click was new at one point and it's usual to treat new things with suspicion especially when they are in the place of an old thing which is well-liked. But in 20 years people will be wondering why anyone cared about this. And moaning that keyboard/mouse controls are being replaced by control by thought :P
Yes, of course, each method always has its own set of specialities. You could just as easily say 'When used well, point & click can be used in ways very hard to do with text input'. Whenever there is change you need to compromise, the question is whether there is a net gain of advantages - which is up for debate. I say the advantages of TT's new control scheme outweigh the compromises it has to make, others will disagree.
Changing from text input to P&C sacrificed some complexity in favor of more convenient controls.
Which is the opposite of what I think Telltale is doing - sacrificing more convenient controls for better looking games. Obviously, good or bad controls is highly subjective, so that's just my opinion.
However - I'm thankful they included a method to play the game using only the mouse.
Sorry! I get that you weren't involved with the "cat in the attic" puzzle from Dott then in any kind of way that really counts for something?
I know it's just semantics, there's more than just the negative connotation of what you mean if you call something a "compromise". I still have to address that, as it sounds exactly like that from the context - that TT's direct control scheme is a "surrender" to the realization that it's just not going to gell with their style of 3D visuals. Maybe it even is! However, I find these discussions trying to the debate the merits of direct controls vs. point&click a little odd, as they tend to view both of those as slightly different things on the very same scale.
I also know I've said it elsewhere, but: They're not. Not in any kind of way. One cannot be simply called "better" than the other. P&C is awesome, it's as intuitive as it'll ever get. But it's also a passive way of controlling a character - you click and he moves. Whereas direct control involves a more, you guessed it, direct way of controlling a character. Metaphorically speaking you get to step right into his shoes and explore an environment for youself. I find it absurd that many an adventure developer pretty much ignores all the physical sensation of exploring an environment only some form of direct control allows for upfront. Yeah, I know, "market realities" and so such. Infer from that as you wish.
Anyway, this isn't an argument made against point&click in any kind of way. I love the classics exactly as they are, thankyouverymuch. I can happily sit down with any worthwile modern point&click game there is, luckily. There's tons and tons and tons of them. It's just that decisions like that should come from some kind of idea what one's trying to achieve with a game rather than a decision to abide to some perceived de facto standard upfront. Some would argue that the latter is what adventure gaming is all about anyway these days.
Was that a rant? I hope not.
I wouldn't mind if point&click gets removed by a better alternative but so far i haven't seen this alternative. The current implementations all have their very own disadvantages. Tweaking one/some of the better methods to a state were it's sweet and enjoyable, beside of offering more than just one way to steer for different minded people, would be the way to go.
Sigh.
P&C has its own fair share of disadvantages just as much. Especially in a 3D game world with cinematic camera angles.
I'm right with you on this. Looking back on the (mostly Sierra) adventure games I played in my youth, they were fun and amazing but I never felt like I was a part of the game world. I could never achieve any real suspension of disbelief because I was more or less issuing orders to a character instead of being that character. It could be that I have trouble getting into things, though.
I think most of you are really going to like the sequence at the end of Wallace & Gromit 104. It really shows off the kind of suspenseful, visceral puzzles you can wrangle out of direct control with a careful design.
Probably highly subjective.
I never felt as though I was Guybrush, I was just guiding him. Thats not a bad thing in adventure games IMO.
When he says "I'm not picking that up" or whatever, who is he talking to if you, the player, is him?
Saying that though, I love the direct control. Even more so having played W&G too now.
Looking forward to seeing some of that appearing in Tales too!
Not sure it would work well in a 3D environment anyway, though.
Anyway, I always liked that system.
However - if you played the old Sierra games using a joystick, you had to hold it to the side all the time to keep the character walking.
I was terribly excited when I heard Telltale say they were going to make a new Monkey Island. I followed E3 pretty closely and the one thing that really made me go bananas was Tales of Monkey Island. In the day of the announcement I came to this website to see what the pre-order price was and I had the game ready to check-out within seconds but I decided to check the forums first and I find people talking about this new combo control scheme of keyboard/mouse and I took the game out of the cart and decided to wait until the demo right there on the spot.
I mean: I loved Sam & Max, I have the 2 full seasons and I love them. Played them twice and I'm thinking of playing a third time to see if I missing anything else but I decided not to pre-order Tales of Monkey Island (and haven't bought it yet even though I bought The Secret of Monkey Island SE within minutes of the Steam release). Why? Cause I tried the demos of Strong Bad and Wallace and Grommit first.
Don't get me wrong, Strong Bad didn't have any control issues, I just didn't like that particular style of humour, but Wallace and Grommit is a completely different story. I'm not a big fan of the old Wallace and Grommit shows so I wasn't very interested in the game in the first place but the controls... Oh dear the controls! The controls got me even more put off the game that I quit and uninstalled the demo without even getting halfway through it. Sure you can say I did it cause I didn't like Wallace and Grommit and it might just be true since I loved Grim Fandango so let's skip ahead to tales.
I installed tales and took roughly twice the time I usually take to finish the puzzles in normal adventure games... Heck, I misclicked so many times in Elaine's boat it wasn't even funny... The moving camera, the constant switching between mouse and keyboard (and I like PC FPS!!!), the weird item combine interface... It was so annoying I'm feeling completely cheated... But you want to know why I fell like that? Cause I loved the writing and the characters... I really, really liked that small intro to the story and I'll probably buy the game if I can play it better with my 360 controller, that's why I feel I'm being exploited. I want to play the game cause the story sounds interesting, I want to support Telltale cause I love Sam & Max, Monkey Island and most of the old Lucas Arts adventure games but the controls are delaying my decision to buy the game for the second time.
Please Telltale, if you can't give us a patch to fix the controls (I won't even ask for it) please give us your word that you will take our opinions into consideration.
Just look at Monkey Island SE: it's not a perfect game, far from it. It's got some really bad animations, it's got an annoying "feature" that prevents people from skipping text without reverting to the classic mode and yet I still want to play the game and I didn't give a seconds thought whether I should buy the game in the first place. It was P&C, the classic system that has been working for what? 20 years now?
I just needed to get this off my chest but I'll probably still give my money to Telltale... I just might not give it now at full price and wait for some kind of sale cause of the control scheme... Call it nitpicking, call it being afraid of change or stuck in the old days but that's just how I fell.
Sorry for quoting you again, but: Design like that is of paramount importance to make some more people in doubt consider. You'll never win over anyone, that's just normal business, as every design decision is going to alienate someone. It's rather easy to spot why somebody would think the abandonment of p&c is merely a cosmetic thing as is now - except that it isn't cosmetic but yeah.. been there done that.
*
I was playing Sam and Max 103 today and I was having real problems
Now a few other times, I was trying to get some objects that were situated behind a table or desk. When clicking "above" the desk (to make Sam go behind it), he would actually walk back in front of the table. You don't feel like you have control over what is going on.
Other times, Max would get in front of important objects and I would not be able to click on them because he was covering that part of the screen with his body. Is this what we really want in a game? In my opinion, all objects should be "usable" when they are on screen. If the mouse pointer would move on a 3D axis then this wouldn't be problematic. But since that's not possible, direct control with hot spot cycling is superior in this aspect.
Now I'm not saying to banish mouse control. There are many people who like it and I respect that. But changes to this method of input are required and ToMI's mouse control should be an acceptable compromise for point and clickers.
The mouse drag interface is considerably more ackward than the keyboard interface -- sometimes the ring is almost horizontal making it harder to move Guybrush forwards and backwards -- something which became a real problem recently as I injured my right had, preventing me from using either a mouse or a keyboard with that hand for the time being. For those with permanent injuries, games like these are among the few kinds that they can ever hope to play.
Someone mentioned that there are technical difficulties with the point&click interface. I find that difficult to believe, since Guybrush will already walk to where I click, as long as I click an object he can interact with. If some prefer the existing interface, I don't see any reason why we couldn't have both.
I was forced to switch to controlling it with the mouse alone and I find that horribly awkward too. Sam & Max worked fine with point and click control, it really needs to come back for the next Monkey Island
For example, in Sam and Max:
A close-up, 'dramatic' camera angle like that would have to either be in a cutscene or a fixed camera poisition, since point'n'click controls wouldn't allow you to move from that location.
How would you move to the left, or closer to the screen? They would have to add arrows to the edge of the screen, and you'd end up with a jarring camera transition everytime you moved around.
Alternately, in ToMI:
You can have shots like this (or better yet, imagine the bridge-crossing) where you'd fully be able to move him around the area, because your movement isn't limited by stuff in the background that you can click on. This allows them to have a fully dynamic camera, and we end up with a better looking game - without losing out on the contols, since everything else still handles exactly the same as a point'n'click game.
I understand that some of you might not be used to action-y games where you directly control the character's movements, but I'm sure by now (two episodes in) it should be second-nature to most of you. It's really not all that complex or different, just better.
*Edit* Oh, and I personally found the controls totally intuitive after the first few seconds of the first episode. If anything, I think I prefer them to actively clicking everywhere - it arguably beats the old-school method of clicking on the ground to make Guybrush move. Imagine how much less awkward SMI's grog puzzle would've been if the puzzle solving and movement controls had been separate.