BobTheDuck
Engaged Member
- Dec 24, 2018
- 2,806
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I 100% understand that. I bought a whiz bang computer for my work, now I am the limitation in my process. Before, the contraints of the hardware forced me to work in stages. Now I don't need to, but I can't actually think fast enough to go as fast as the hardware now allows. I still need to make aesthetic decisions, and those decisions aren't a function of time.A little self-reference almost off topic...
Since my activity for the last 15 years has been basically coordinating teams, I have a hard time when I meet individualists. When a certain activity can be done by oneself, go ahead and do it, but obviously that limits the prospects. A good coordinator does not teach how to do things, he chooses the one who demonstrates with results.
And I would like to link this to the other part that catches my attention, when a hardware upgrade results in shorter cycles? answer... never.
If not, look at that other lonely dev who made it clear that he would never hire anyone because he wants to do it all by himself... he has a rig capable of doing 20 AVNs a year, but geez! 60fps!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!![]()
THe problem is that Ocean probably COULD lead a team, if he wasn't aesthetically invested in the games. But if he wasn't, the games wouldn't be worth playing. Ultimately, we play these games because of who writes them, not because of the hardware they're rendered on. Part of Ocean's aesthetic has developed with the hardware, and he tells the story in wordless images. Almost all of the emotional cues are visual. The decisions of when William cries, how he cries stoically etc. create an aesthetic, but those decsions only work when someone agonises over a scene until they're happy.
As much as I am impatient, Ocean is always using an artistic approach as the arbiter of the decisions, and every time he short cuts the artistic direction in favour of a timeline or efficiency, we see problems in the output (continuity errors mainly). As much as I'd like to see what a shakeup can do, it's better to let him focus on delivering things he's happy to create.