Discussing Landfishian theology..

Niphty · 2001-02-21T08:50:10

Ok, now.. to bring back the inspiration of Landfish to the boards, and to make Naz happy at the sharing of ideas.. i''ve much to discuss. Tonight, having finished off Orson Scott Card''s newest book, Shadow of the Hegemon, I sat idlly by watching my girlfriend merilessly shoot crossbow bolts into goblins. I began to ponder things from the book, which had me in a philisophical mood. Then i watched her playing, watched the intensity of it.. her anticipation of the next strike against the goblin hordes. *THIS*, I realized, is why people play these games. That caused me to stop, and think.. if Landfish had his way, and this element was removed, what would fill the game time? Now, step back and think about this. Take away combat from a game.. the anticipation of some foe coming along for you to kill, and what''s left.. you''ve simply got to content yourself on working other skills. But this is the very thing we''re also trying to avoid.. mindless clicking to gain skills to get levels. But combat is NOT mindless clicking. There''s a randomness about it.. there''s a reason to do it again and again.. it was different all the time, it changed, the situation changed.. forced you to think, consider all things.. assess your situation, and make strategic warfare. If you didn''t, you died.. you lost a level, some skill, something. But if you won.. you GAINED things. This excitement, this utter bare anticipation, is why people play these games. The fact that you can''t predict what''ll happen. I mean, what person is content fighting an enemy they can easily kill? They want bigger and better challenges! Now we, as developers, sit here pondering stealing the one thing most people look forward to.. all for what? Landfish? Think about it good.. and hard. People want to gain something from their time. They want to do something and have something result from it. They want progress, they want to feel like their time spent meant something, some reward. This has been discussed before.. but i don''t think many people ever really critically analyzed this situation to the full extent. Take out combat, and you force people to do mindless skilling. Take that out, and what''s left to the game? What do you propse people do with their time? Roll dice? Work the farm? What is it that you think would go well here? I''m stuck at an under impass at this point. I''ve begun to analyze every game i played in the past.. and tried to think about why it was good or not good.. and i''ve come to the conclusion that excitement is anticipation. You don''t know what the enemy''s going to do, and you''ve got to be ready to counter it. Anything non-random was boring and grew old pretty fast. Look at tetris.. the most addicting game ever! And what was at it''s core? Random pieces of fixed shape. The speed of the game only factored in to measure just how good you were and how fast you could think.. a leveling system. But the core was the randomness mixed with the constant. Constant peices, but randomly appearing. In the heart, strategy and tactics was what it boiled down to. How could you command the pieces to move as you wanted them? How well could you control what you were given to make the outcome you wanted when faced with a constantly random situation? Food for thought.. so now give me your thoughts. J

Game Design and Theory Game Design

Started by Niphty January 28, 2001 12:29 AM

49 comments, last by Niphty 23 years, 1 month ago

Nazrix

307

February 21, 2001 08:50 AM

quote:Original post by Wavinator

I suspect that for games like Ultima Online it was simply tolerance and the novelty of the experience. People had to hack at trees, dig for ore, and do other mindless stuff just to get on with the interesting meat of exploring and fighting and such.

I honestly believe the designers of UO were going for a simulated economy, but failed to realize it sucks to spend hours of real time clicking on a tree.

quote:
What do you give them to do? Well, what is there that''s interesting to do?!?! If it''s solely fighting, then cool: But that fighting better be detailed and intricate enough to hold them for months! If you''re putting in time sinks just to keep them, then you''re kind of like the old arcade designers that threw in impossible obstacles just to make the player drop a few more coins in the machine.

I agree w/ Wav. You have to figure out what the game will concentrate on. EQ may have been hack & slash, but the balance of the classes and the strategies was somewhat detailed.

I would suggest concentrating on some sort of political aspect. Use the fact that there are 1000s of players and let them build some a society of sorts and develop their own quests that come out of the fact that there are many players interacting.

Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself.
What a plight we who try to make a story-based game have...writers of conventional media have words, we have but binary numbers

Need help? Well, go FAQ yourself. "Just don't look at the hole." -- Unspoken_Magi

Discussing Landfishian theology..

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Discussing Landfishian theology..

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