The Man Who Was RIGHT
Insider
NOTHING! I am the hero and this right here is my destiny. Alright, perhaps I can't kill the five legged mullet-bearing minotaur-cyclops (guardian of the doom pit of horror and infinite hate) YET because I'm a level one infant, but you just wait til I've got through multiple multitudes of giant rats, put down the evil monkey-squirrel snakepigs and farmed the ever-spawning bandits of malfeasance - nothing will get in my way, for it is my DESTINY to beat anything the game DARES to present to me as a challenge.
Hello! This is my first thread. I am here to talk about a dream: a dream of not being the hero.
There is a saying in the video game industry: If this shit is too hard then the customer is going to cry "poo-poo". Perhaps that's not the saying, but it's undoubtedly something along those lines. We've been spoon-fed success - if there is a challenge, it is the natural course of events that the player will overcome it. Each and every obstacle is but a stepping stone to the next one.
Check this out, I've embedded a video in a post! Here is a promo video for Half-Life 2:
I was blown away when I first saw this. I was blown away when I watched it again and again. This segment didn't set up my expectations for a decent boss fight - it set up my expectations for an unwinnable fight, a struggle for survival.
The reality was otherwise. Fighting striders was possibly the greatest bore of the entire game - with unlimited supplies of rockets conveniently and consistently placed nearby it was just a tedious matter of poking out of cover, firing, hiding, reloading, repeating. But imagine what it could've been? Take the scene above, and imagine if one had no means of destroying it - fleeing through corridors and apartments amidst a crowd of panicked citizens, striders tearing up the building from the street below while combine are rushing up the stairs - being forced to the rooftop, only to hear the sound of a gunship closing in. What now?
When games readily grant us the tools to deal with all challenges we're cheated of the feelings of excitement, panic, joy and relief when against all odds we succeed. What if Sui Generis had a foe so powerful that only a handful of dedicated players ever defeat it? What if not everything was meant to be beaten? What if, although the game were accessible to all, it was up to each and every one to do what he can, rather than what is expected of him?
How many of us have spent hours trying to do what the developer never intended for us to do? And wasn't that just the best fun?
Hello! This is my first thread. I am here to talk about a dream: a dream of not being the hero.
There is a saying in the video game industry: If this shit is too hard then the customer is going to cry "poo-poo". Perhaps that's not the saying, but it's undoubtedly something along those lines. We've been spoon-fed success - if there is a challenge, it is the natural course of events that the player will overcome it. Each and every obstacle is but a stepping stone to the next one.
Check this out, I've embedded a video in a post! Here is a promo video for Half-Life 2:
I was blown away when I first saw this. I was blown away when I watched it again and again. This segment didn't set up my expectations for a decent boss fight - it set up my expectations for an unwinnable fight, a struggle for survival.
The reality was otherwise. Fighting striders was possibly the greatest bore of the entire game - with unlimited supplies of rockets conveniently and consistently placed nearby it was just a tedious matter of poking out of cover, firing, hiding, reloading, repeating. But imagine what it could've been? Take the scene above, and imagine if one had no means of destroying it - fleeing through corridors and apartments amidst a crowd of panicked citizens, striders tearing up the building from the street below while combine are rushing up the stairs - being forced to the rooftop, only to hear the sound of a gunship closing in. What now?
When games readily grant us the tools to deal with all challenges we're cheated of the feelings of excitement, panic, joy and relief when against all odds we succeed. What if Sui Generis had a foe so powerful that only a handful of dedicated players ever defeat it? What if not everything was meant to be beaten? What if, although the game were accessible to all, it was up to each and every one to do what he can, rather than what is expected of him?
How many of us have spent hours trying to do what the developer never intended for us to do? And wasn't that just the best fun?
Nonetheless, for the sake of discussion: I'm sick of the hand holding in today's games, even when playing on the hardest difficulty, most games are still easy. Luckily BM already said that there will be enemy's not easily defeated. Hopefully they really deliver on that point, and we get some optimal "bosses" that really require a "Elite" player to do his/her best.
