It finally occurred to me why Excavating Antiquities felt so nostalgic!

B0SSzombie

Anyone else here ever play Pokemon Diamond or Pearl (or Platinum)?

deleted210304-002304

I shall answer on behalf of everyone;

No.

(Answer may or may not represent the response of the entire community)

Pinja

I mean I haven't but either way tell us about your realization.
Is there some feature in those games that match eso, could you include images in your description?

B0SSzombie

btoop wrote: »

I shall answer on behalf of everyone;

No.

(Answer may or may not represent the response of the entire community)

Pinja wrote: »

I mean I haven't but either way tell us about your realization.
Is there some feature in those games that match eso, could you include images in your description?

It's EXTREMELY similar to the Underground Mining minigame of those games:



https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/The_Underground

WrathOfInnos

Never played it, but the antiquities system does feel approximately like a grindy mobile game from 14 years ago.

I suspect that version was actually more polished. I’m guessing that if you found something there wasn’t a bug where it still showed uncovered until you dug all the surrounding “sparkles”. It probably also didn’t kick you back to the main menu if you dug too fast, with an error about “spamming” messages.

Arunei

Yep, I thought this very thing the first time I tried an Excavation. I even mentioned it to a few if my other friends, who themselves haven't played Gen4 and thus had no idea what I was talking about. Considering how similar they are, I wouldn't be surprised if ZOS took some heavy inspiration from it.

B0SSzombie

Arunei wrote: »

Yep, I thought this very thing the first time I tried an Excavation. I even mentioned it to a few if my other friends, who themselves haven't played Gen4 and thus had no idea what I was talking about. Considering how similar they are, I wouldn't be surprised if ZOS took some heavy inspiration from it.

It wouldn't surprise me if there's an even older game that both were inspired by. Who knows.

I'm just waiting for someone to pop up with "Well, it's based off of some obscure game from the Atari or Game & Watch."

Langdon64

Old games never die. They morph.

Ragged_Claw

OMG! I knew it reminded me of something, I remember this well lol

Recent

btoop wrote: »

I shall answer on behalf of everyone;

No.

(Answer may or may not represent the response of the entire community)

😂😂😂😂😂😂

khajiitNPC

Um...it’s just minesweeper. That’s it.

ganzaeso

mine sweeper will always be the original

aaisoaho

khajiitNPC wrote: »

Um...it’s just minesweeper. That’s it.

I disagree. The logic is different in minesweeper.

But cool find OP, it has been a long time from the last time I played Pokemon Pearl and I didn't realise why excavation felt so familiar. Now I'm wondering why scrying feels also familiar.

FrancisCrawford

aaisoaho wrote: »

khajiitNPC wrote: »

Um...it’s just minesweeper. That’s it.

I disagree. The logic is different in minesweeper.

But cool find OP, it has been a long time from the last time I played Pokemon Pearl and I didn't realise why excavation felt so familiar. Now I'm wondering why scrying feels also familiar.

Scrying is from the Stoneflood group of games. The basic model is:

• There are a bunch of tiles of different colors (or symbols). Usually the grid is rectangular rather than hexagonal, but I prefer the hexagonal option.
• You start with a single tile or small patch in one corner and want to change everything to be a single color.
• You do so by successive uses of what amounts to the Dilation skill in ESO. This sort of looks like a pool of water expanding to fill a room.

Berenhir

Scrying is ripped of EVE Online hacking and Excavation is ripped of Pokémon.

The whole development process probably was around 5 minutes of 'brain" storming under the influence.

Tommy_The_Gun

Played Poke... what ?I have only played Poker. As for the title mentioned, I am afraid I am not familiar with it and have not played it.

spartaxoxo

There's gotta be another game that did this. I have a feeling I've seen this before too, but did not play Pokemon Pearl.

Rowjoh

The scrying/excavating mechanic and quality of rewards is very good - a welcome addition to the game and well balanced too.

The execution, graphics, and look and feel however is not.

For a game of this overall graphical quality, it's cheap-arsed lazy game 'design' at its absolute worst.

A proper re-design in keeping with the rest of the game would be appreciated

LuxLunae

B0SSzombie wrote: »

Anyone else here ever play Pokemon Diamond or Pearl (or Platinum)?

you read my comment earlier? I said something similar lol

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/6817989#Comment_6817989

ImmortalCX

Rowjoh wrote: »

The scrying/excavating mechanic and quality of rewards is very good - a welcome addition to the game and well balanced too.

The execution, graphics, and look and feel however is not.

For a game of this overall graphical quality, it's cheap-arsed lazy game 'design' at its absolute worst.

A proper re-design in keeping with the rest of the game would be appreciated

Its the same level of design as the lock picking minigame.

How many threads have you started about redesigning the lockpicking minigame?

Danikat

I thought the same thing. I know other games have used similar mechanics (most famously Minesweeper) but the version in Pokemon Diamond and Pearl is very similar. It has valuable items of varying shapes and sizes hidden under up to 3 layers of rocks, with two different tools that remove different shaped areas of rock, within a time limit. Even the interface is similar. Oh, and you use a scanning tool to find areas to mine.

I don't necessarily see it as a bad thing when games re-use ideas from older games, it would be pretty terrible if once something had appeared once it could never be used again, and sometimes games can improve on previous ideas and make something even better. But I can't say this is something I especially enjoyed or missed in other games.