i find myself doing the opposite, although i can play non linear games, and enjoy them, i can't replay them.

however, all of the good non-linear games i own i find i can replay if i want to.

to each his own.

[Edited by - rip-off on January 19, 2006 6:37:31 PM]

To the O.P., it's because you're a diamond.

Eh, that sounds a little more obsessive than being a mere diamond...

Anyways, my wife has the same sort of gripes with many games. Unfortunately, she likes 'collecting' things, which often is best done in non-linear RPG sort of games [think Final Fantasy, pokemon].

She handles the problem by finding a nice thorough walkthrough and following it to a T. No worries about making the wrong choice, and character customization choices quickly become immaterial when you find all the secret stuff.

I love the concept of open-ended games, but dislike many implementations of the concept. I think my biggest gripe is a sense of a hard-coded set of content. For example, there are n unique items in the game, and it is remotely feasible to actually obtain all of them. Or when a game has a percent-complete statistic. It exacerbates the feeling that you're missing something. When I think of implementing the open-ended concept, I try to think of making the underlying architecture legitimately open-ended, rather than just really large but ultimately finite. But even to the extent that I'd have to make it large-but-finite, I'd try to hide that fact, try to make it feel infinite. Unique items, specific quests, percent-complete statistics, and such like that work to undo that infinite feeling and have always irked me, at least in the back of my mind.

I've always been interested (though not active) with demoscene-style programs, and such. Procedural techniques for generating content has great potential. The problem is that it's really difficult to turn procedural content into an exciting world and a well balanced and fun game. Will Wright is trying to do with with Spore, but it's still up in the air how well it'll work; it's a rather ambitious project.

I'm curious - to the OP, how do you feel about games like the Metroid series (in particular, Super Metroid) or the more recent Castlevania games? They're pseudo-linear, since you're typically constrained to a subset of the available world by the abilities you have; however, sufficiently clever gameplay lets you break sequence, making the game more nonlinear. Ultimately you'll end up getting all or most of the powerups (you aren't forced to leave things behind and it doesn't take long to travel backwards through the gameworld), but the path you take to the endgame can vary.

I think there's a distinction to be made here between "destructive" and "nondestructive" nonlinearity. In the former, decisions you make early on can prevent you from doing everything a game has to offer, sometimes significantly so. In the latter, you can always access everything in the game, and as a general rule you will access everything eventually, but it's your choice what order to do things in.

Quote:Original post by Kevinator
Sure, I'll elaborate on Doom 3. With me, it's all about my nerves. After a session of play, am I relaxed or am I anxious? With Doom 3, I am definitely anxious. Not because it makes me scared, but because it grates my nerves to play it, literally.

I walk into a room, and I know the baddies are going to teleport in behind me or plow througha wall somewhere, and it's not really fun, it just becomes more of a chore. Combine the chore of hunting for monsters in this way with being lost a lot and not being able to see very well, and I just feel drained after a session of playing DOOM3. All the games on my bottom list leave me feeling refreshed or energized or get my imagination going.

I don't really consider DOOM3 very linear. At least in my definition of linear, you don't get lost. Laugh at me if you want, but I managed to lose my way quite often in DOOM3.

It's like riding a roller coaster. Are you relaxed or are you scared? But you still had fun. It's the same as Doom. It's a thrill

About what you said about Morrow Wind, that is just something that happens when a game become too balanced. Simply because what drives a player to play a game is to constantly seeking out ways to get pass obsicles, and if there are easy ways, they'll find it and exploit it. In other words...what drives players to play the game is to seek out that unbalance in game and exploit it. And when a game do become perfect or near perfect balance, there are no more seeking to do, at which the player looses interest and stop playing.

What about the hybrid position, that one could prefer games that allow customization, but only when it is things that really matter. I was sad to notice that starcraft was on your list of games. The nonlinearliness of Starcraft means that at any moment you could be hosed because you didn't defend against the right kind of attack. Zerglings are bad against scouts... :-P

Worms Armageddon was great because of the amount of customization that could be done. The game was turn based, which was slightly linearized version of a nonlinear game. The customization ended with things that dramatically affected gameplay. I laughed my ass off when my Age of Empires III playing friends finally hacked the XML file because they were tired of earning little power cards from the game. Customization that allows a game to become many things that are generally supported by its engine is good customization. Customization that turns the game into a big dollhouse or that open ended nothingness is rather boring. Hence, GTA was lost on me. I just never could give a crap about how many cars I collected or have fun running around destroying shit.