Gaming Confessions & Blasphemy

Scratched wrote:
ibdoomed wrote:

I hate achievements. I'm not so desperate for attention that I need to be congratulated for pressing start. Devs: If you want an instant sale regardless of ANY other part of your game, put in an option to disable achievements. My $60 is instantly yours.

Intrinsic versus extrinsic rewarding. I think achievements have some role to play, and people will always find a way to measure and compare e-peens so it gives them one (may as well cater to them), but there is a lot of putting the cart before the horse. I think it would be an interesting playtest experiment if achievements were disabled, but the tester was meant to be at least aware of how to get them naturally through the game, without the to-do list.

I can tell you, the only time I've gone achievement whore in games is where I really enjoy the games and want to get that did everything kind of feeling out of it... or it becomes a test of skill that I think may actually be feasible for me. Not necessarily easy, mind you (the train kills in Infamous being a good example of not easy in skill or willpower to keep going)... but interesting to me. That was why I enjoyed the achievements for World of Warcraft with raiding (stopped in Lich King, so dunno about anything post that)... Killing that robot by breaking his heart and then dealing with his whole new skillset and the enrage timer on him was hilariously fun. Some like killing the old god under Uld'uar without any help from the various gods was also fun in that it turned an already challenging fight into a whole new level of craziness.

But, I really don't sit there and say, well, I got this achievement, when speaking to friends. I just do it to try it out. if I accomplish it, awesome, feel good about myself for a minute or two. If not, either keep trying and get better or move on if it seems pointless. Just another way to enjoy my games for me.

I hate online games. Excluding WoW, I have never really been into online games. Usually this is a result of competition above all else. I'm really not a competitive guy. I work hard, I try to be the best I can, but I have very little interest in comparing to others. I suspect this is the reason why the only other online game I've played since early college is Mass Effect 3 and a little Torchlight II with friends. In WoW, everyone in my guild would beg me to come join their PvP or 5v5 Arena teams for healing and support and I just never could do it because I haaaaaaaaated it. Single-player with the occasional coop only multiplayer for me!

Edit: That was dumb.

Here's one. I don't like MMOs because of the camera/control schemes. It just disconnects me from the game.

edited because he edited.

Scratched wrote:

edited because he edited.

Sorry! I should have thought about that for a few more minutes before posting.

Tanglebones wrote:
ibdoomed wrote:

I hate the handholding our entire hobby has turned to. Pong never told us "move to the left to rebound the ball".

Equivalent complexities:

Touche! There's no left in pong, I must have been thinking breakout.

I find well-implemented motion controls to be immersive. Even small things like flicking the Wiimote to make Samus' morph ball bounce are neat and help me connect to the game better.

I'm disappointed by some aspects of the Wii, but it's still my favorite console this generation. There are so many things that could have been done differently or better to make the Wii a smoother, more enjoyable experience. But at the end of the day, I've had more pure fun with that console than any other I've owned, and many of the things that I would change are also the things that helped make it more accessible (even if only financially) to more people.

I like casual mini-game collections. Why? Because they've been great for getting non-gamers to play games with me and have a good time. Wii Sports, Big Brain Academy, BoomBlox, and the like have all brought a lot of fun to my household, and I value the time I spent playing them more than the time I spent playing more hardcore games.

ibdoomed wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:
ibdoomed wrote:

I hate the handholding our entire hobby has turned to. Pong never told us "move to the left to rebound the ball".

Equivalent complexities:

Touche! There's no left in pong, I must have been thinking breakout.

There's no up or down in Breakout.

I'm enjoying watching teenagers suffer in Corpse Party at the moment.

I thought Star Ocean 4 was pretty fun and Reimi was cute.

So many super strong opinions here, wow.

I don't understand zealotry.
In most forms, I mean. Oddly, I can understand religous zealots, because they honestly believe that there is a good and evil and one of you has to be on the wrong side of that, and it can't be them. I have never understood it with consoles, DLC, DRM and Achievements. If you don't want to get a [your least favorite console], but someone else does, why do you need to express that? Why don't you just not buy DLC, rather than spend your time complaining about it? Does my purchase of DLC (even the dreaded Day-One kind) make you a lesser person, or make your game worth less?

I can't figure out what I dislike about Call of Duty, but there is something.
I played the single-player of Modern Warfare, and I loved it. Some fantastic pacing, great set-pieces and a really good blend of different actions. Then I tried the multiplayer, and hated it. I gave Black Ops a try, and hated that, too. There is just something with the controls that I can't get my head around.

Games are too long.
Nearly all of them. Pretty much every week of the year there are new games coming out that look worth my money, but I want to get a complete package from my games that I already own. I appreciate that you wanted to give somebody 1000 hours of exploration, but I am trying to follow a story; lets get back to that.

Game stories are not as bad as people like to pretend.

Snipers ruin everything.
Screw them.

Opinions aren't facts, but Burnout Paradise is the best racing game of all time; 3D platformers are not good; sports games are stupid; the Sims is the worst game idea ever; God of War is too violent; and Final Fantasy games suck.

Games are indeed too long.

Or is it possible that if it's too long, you're too old?

I mean, they are, but I am. Hmm.

Gumbie wrote:

1. I thought The Witcher was terribly boring. I hated the combat and thought it had way too many systems and menus in it. I played the first 2 hours and gave up.

2. I liked Dragon Age II better than Dragon Age Origins. I hated having to constantly micro manage my group in Origins and it became tedious to me.

3. The older I get the less I like multiplayer gaming and would rather sit down with a good story single player game. I feel like I don't have time to game nearly as much as I want to and that my skill level in competitive multiplayer games has suffered because of it. Also I am an extremely competitive person by nature so most of the time when I'm playing competitive multiplayer I'm stressed the max. Lately I've taken a step back and realized that spending my time constantly getting pissed during multiplayer games isn't really having fun. I've also realized how many really good single player games I've missed out on because I was too busy constantly playing multiplayer.

+1 to all of these.

Plus some of my own.

I've played Guild Wars 2, and I find it a completely tedious and soulless exercise. The storylines are hackneyed (I've tried the human and Sylvari) and appear to be an exercise to get you to level up. The much-vaunted 'there are no tedious fetch/kill quests' point seems to be somewhat irrelevant when your main xp spring at lower levels is doing 'events' in which you run around doing things to make a bar fill up...some of which are well-defined in terms of place/activity, and some of which are not. I don't really have any interest in pvp or jumping puzzles, and increasingly find that I have no interest in developing the characters I created.

Eve Online is not the exemplar of subscription MMO's than many seem to think it is. I've played it on and off for over 7 years, and can say that it is

- probably the most expensive per month MMO I've played on a subscription basis unless you go for long timespans.
- Extremely dull unless you are in a corp which is in 0.0 or pirating.
- Heavily reliant on the players to actually create the interesting parts of the game.
- Has a history of poor coding, exploits left open and at the very least toleration of gold farming and sales for long periods of time. I remember one patch that actually overwrote a system file on the user's machine and was released as such before it was altered.
- Has large parts of the game which have remained completely unaltered for 5 years or so (missioning, manufacturing, mining - though the latter is about to change, I think). This isn't because they are particularly good (the manufacturing is clunky beyond belief), but because CCP can't be arsed with them.

I think you need to be careful saying "too long" as it's close to a blanket statement. I can certainly say some overstay their welcome, or are dragged out. You also mix in issues such as value for the asking price

Game stories are not as bad as people like to pretend.

I think people need to accept them for what they are. Some times it's perfectly fine to stop the madman or save the princess. More often than not I'd prefer weaker stories to just get out of the way and let me get on with the game, than over compensate and make a fool of themselves.

Atras wrote:

So many super strong opinions here, wow.

I don't understand zealotry.
In most forms, I mean. Oddly, I can understand religous zealots, because they honestly believe that there is a good and evil and one of you has to be on the wrong side of that, and it can't be them. I have never understood it with consoles, DLC, DRM and Achievements. If you don't want to get a [your least favorite console], but someone else does, why do you need to express that? Why don't you just not buy DLC, rather than spend your time complaining about it? Does my purchase of DLC (even the dreaded Day-One kind) make you a lesser person, or make your game worth less?

I can touch on two of these.

Achievements: The argument I've seen against my hatred of them is "just ignore them". That's generally not possible as they jump out and slap you in the face thus breaking any sort of ambiance/engrossment created by the game. Sometimes it's even worse than that too; the binding of isaac is a great example, it actually pauses gameplay and puts a fullscreen and unskippable 'congrats' up.

DLC: I can understand post game DLC. I don't like it, but at least I can maintain the ignorance that the devs finished the game as intended and then continued to work on it. Day 1 DLC though is a kick in the nuts that basically says to me "we wanted more money than only the $60 we can charge for this" and just reeks of greed. I blame publishers and marketing for this, not devs.

ibdoomed wrote:

Achievements: The argument I've seen against my hatred of them is "just ignore them". That's generally not possible as they jump out and slap you in the face thus breaking any sort of ambiance/engrossment created by the game.

You know, at least on the 360, you can just turn notifications off and never see them.

My favorite game series is better than your favorite game series.
That series is Demon's/Dark Souls.

CURVED

SWORDS

EDIT: I would also like to second what Atras (except for the part about all games being to long, some games I feel earn the length, such as persona 4, but most I will agree do not) and Gumbie said.

Yasumi matsuno is a better writer then George R. R. Martin could ever hope to be.
Matsuno tells the exact type of story in Final Fantasy Tactics that Martin has been trying to tell in his song of ice and fire series in a game that would take you half of the time to play that it took me to get trough the first four books of a song ice and fire, And he did it without chopping heads of every five minutes and raping or threatening to rape half the female cast in an attempt to demonstrate how terrible life was for people of that era, when really George R. R. Martin just couldn't be bothered to come up with better character motivation. And on the rare occasion that Matsuno does use those tropes it and the characters reactions to it feels justified instead of cheap and unearned.

I haven't played all the way trough Final Fantasy tactics in five years
I've tried to play the the remake with the new translation but the slow down is just to much for me to handle.

Final Fantasy XII is my favorite game in the (mainline)series.

The story was almost great, and while it sadly fall apart towards the middle I still liked the characters (except Van who I've almost managed to block out from my memory) and the overall theme of the games plot, and it had the best world out of any of the other games in the series.
I also loved the battle system but I realize its not for everyone, so I'll just go ahead assume you know by now which side of this argument you fall on.

I think people are to hard on writing in video games.
I grew up playing games, and there has never been a time in my life were I have felt that writing in games was any worse then writing in any other medium, yes it is certainly harder to tell a great story in games then it is in most other forms of entertainment but if you look at TV or movies your just as likely to find an example of bad story telling as you are in any game, and a movie can't even make up for it with gameplay.

I've always thought that Achievements added extra value to a game, urging me too look at it and play it in creative new ways.

Dead Rising often springs to mind with this topic as many of the Achievements were fun as hell.

Frank the Pimp - Simultaneously escort 8 female survivors.
Strike! - Send at least 10 zombies flying using a bowling ball.
Costume Party - Place novelty masks on at least 10 zombies.
Raining Zombies - Knock at least 30 zombies aside with a parasol (in one go).
etc.

It's just futzing around doing goofy stuff, and it's generally things I wouldn't think to do on my own without the guidance and gentle urging Achievements foster. But either way it can turn standard gameplay mechanics on their head when implemented intelligently.

Of course if one doesn't like them, that's cool too. I've just never gotten the e-peen/bragging counterargument, as that mindset is the last thing on my mind when 'Cheevo-hunting. I just like to have extra fun with the games I already enjoy.

Aaron D. wrote:

I've always thought that Achievements added extra value to a game, urging me too look at it and play it in creative new ways.

I think achievements can do that, but I don't think they do it automatically. I don't mind having achievements in games when they've been thoughtfully added and implemented; I dislike when achievements are added to games because of a system-level requirement that they be there.

Can't argue with that. But like anything in life, there are skilled and not so skilled implementations.

I love Achievements, but even I think, *ding!* You Beat Chapter 3! achievements are dumb.

Dyni wrote:

My favorite game series is better than your favorite game series.
That series is Demon's/Dark Souls.

This is the confessions and blasphemies thread, jack. The irrefutable truths thread is over there --->

LobsterMobster wrote:

1. I am f*cking sick of FPS devs thinking their game absolutely, positively MUST have sniping in it or it's no good.

Seriously, guys. Sniping is a lot of fun when it's done right, and moderately fun even when it's not, but the world won't end if someone releases an FPS without sniper rifles in it.

I do not have fun when I die and I don't understand what I did wrong.

I can't think of a team based PvP FPS that wouldn't be improved if they removed snipers from it. And yes, TF2, I'm looking at you.

oMonarca wrote:

Videogames are a dumb waste of time.

Thank god.

Nah... there's no point to this.

Carry on, carry on, forget I said anything.

Oh my... too late.

IHateDRM wrote:

I think people are to hard on writing in video games.
I grew up playing games, and there has never been a time in my life were I have felt that writing in games was any worse then writing in any other medium, yes it is certainly harder to tell a great story in games then it is in most other forms of entertainment but if you look at TV or movies your just as likely to find an example of bad story telling as you are in any game, and a movie can't even make up for it with gameplay.

Hmmm, another angle on this.

One thing I think gets people's heckles up is the Bioshock thing, you know, "Would you kindly" (another point for cargo cultists overuse of anything remotely above the crowd).

The thing with games is that they're an active thing, you're doing things, and what you do affects the game, and hopefully if you do something you're meant to (shoot guy in the face) you get rewarded by progression, flashy lights going off, gamerscore or whatever does it for you. Most games for their story have you as a passive observer, plugged as the kick-ass hero but quickly sidelined when a bit of story comes along for someone else to steal the glory and take the story away from the player. One half active participant, one half yelling behind the soundproof glass looking on as some asshole that isn't you messes things up as a forced way to advance the plot

Bioshock actually acknowledged in the story the gameplay trope about you taking orders and mixed it in with the story, a tiny step but so bloody rare.

Perhaps I'm mixing up bad stories with bad storytelling, or suiting the storytelling with the media. I don't really have much wrong with 'bad' stories as you'd find in a cheap paperback so long as they're not overblown.

I guess the WYK thing is one step along the road to big RPG, between something set in stone but told with flare (cinematic, etc) and over towards where the player can determine lots, or even do whatever they feel like, which would be prohibitive in production cost and why I think more developers should trust systems and let the player make their own stories within whatever they've made. Can't have that though, everything has to be predictable, the 'no child left behind' of gaming.

Unquoted.

I don't know where to take my own argument anyway.

Dyni wrote:

Final Fantasy XII is my favorite game in the (mainline)series.

The story was almost great, and while it sadly fall apart towards the middle I still liked the characters (except Van who I've almost managed to block out from my memory) and the overall theme of the games plot, and it had the best world out of any of the other games in the series.
I also loved the battle system but I realize its not for everyone, so I'll just go ahead assume you know by now which side of this argument you fall on.

Absolutely! FFXII is my favourite mainline FF. IV and VI just fall flat for me mostly. I generally love the production values, world building, and characters in the FF series but the gameplay is usually the weakest part. I would rather have the combat in a Tales game for example than two parties lined up on either side of the screen casting Fire spells. FFXII finally nailed the combat, mostly taking away the tedium of selecting basic actions, allowing you to craft gambits to optimise your party and then just dipping in when the situation required it.

Scratched wrote:
IHateDRM wrote:

I think people are to hard on writing in video games.
I grew up playing games, and there has never been a time in my life were I have felt that writing in games was any worse then writing in any other medium, yes it is certainly harder to tell a great story in games then it is in most other forms of entertainment but if you look at TV or movies your just as likely to find an example of bad story telling as you are in any game, and a movie can't even make up for it with gameplay.

Hmmm, another angle on this.

One thing I think gets people's heckles up is the Bioshock thing, you know, "Would you kindly" (another point for cargo cultists overuse of anything remotely above the crowd).

The thing with games is that they're an active thing, you're doing things, and what you do affects the game, and hopefully if you do something you're meant to (shoot guy in the face) you get rewarded by progression, flashy lights going off, gamerscore or whatever does it for you. Most games for their story have you as a passive observer, plugged as the kick-ass hero but quickly sidelined when a bit of story comes along for someone else to steal the glory and take the story away from the player. One half active participant, one half yelling behind the soundproof glass looking on as some asshole that isn't you messes things up as a forced way to advance the plot

Bioshock actually acknowledged in the story the gameplay trope about you taking orders and mixed it in with the story, a tiny step but so bloody rare.

Perhaps I'm mixing up bad stories with bad storytelling, or suiting the storytelling with the media. I don't really have much wrong with 'bad' stories as you'd find in a cheap paperback so long as they're not overblown.

I guess the WYK thing is one step along the road to big RPG, between something set in stone but told with flare (cinematic, etc) and over towards where the player can determine lots, or even do whatever they feel like, which would be prohibitive in production cost and why I think more developers should trust systems and let the player make their own stories within whatever they've made. Can't have that though, everything has to be predictable, the 'no child left behind' of gaming.

I grew up in the SNES era of gaming so I don't expect a game to offer me much in the way of choice in how the plot unfolds, although when done well I do prefer it and believe it is most likely gaming biggest strength.

But I do think there's room for both methods of story telling in gaming, a game doesn't have to give me any real control over the narrative so long as it gives me a reason to care about its story in the first place (see portal for a good example of this), and I see no problem with the kind of cheap paperback writing you find in games like assassins creed, sometimes you just want some good stupid fun and there's nothin wrong with that. Although there are times were it feels like its taking over the medium.

It matters so dang little what other people like vs what you like. So little.