Should Gamers Use Smarter Problem-Solving? 109
Thanks to the IGDA for its 'Culture Clash' column exploring the effect of technical and gameplay advances on videogame problem-solving. A situation regarding Deus Ex: Invisible War is discussed, where "...testers approached a T intersection: to the right were laser tripwires and gun turrets; to the left was a locked door; and directly in front was a (usable) window. He said every single one of them, without fail, went to the right." The author explains: "One can imagine how frustrated developers must occasionally get when they watch gamers consistently employ Neolithic problem solving tactics when modern development tools make much more advanced techniques available." Is this a problem that developers or gamers should work to overcome?
Goofy Perceptions (Score:5, Interesting)
I like some of the ideas that are put forth in the article, but I think that people will gladly come up with new and interesting ways to succeed in games as the physics and AI models become increasingly complex.
Re:Goofy Perceptions (Score:5, Insightful)
Solution (Score:2)
Give them a time limit, and let them know that they have to rush. Then they'll take the path of least resistence - e.g. the window.
Re:Goofy Perceptions (Score:2)
Perhaps it was because Warren Spector didn't understand that people are drawn to conflict that Deus Ex 2 was so poorly recieved. Sure, you could break the window, sneak in through the bathroom, but you could do that at home. Why not run in with guns blazing? Or at least sneak around trying to avoid the turret of death rather than avoiding the tidy bowl.
I guess that sums up the experience with Deus Ex 2 rather nicely... Frequently, the best soluti
Re:Goofy Perceptions (Score:3, Interesting)
When I'm playing a game and I notice an alternate route, the first question is: can I get back? I might break the window, then decide that _maybe_ I'll be able to climb back in, and maybe not. I'll take the corridor first, search it, wipe out whatever bad guys are down there, and then backtrack to the window to see what's out there. Otherwise, I'll be forever wondering "what was through that window?" or "what was down that
It's all about RISK VS REWARD (Score:3, Insightful)
If a hallway is empty, chances are nothing is important down it. Exploring it is largely meaningless.
If you see a spot where some massive split-second jumping timing is required to get to, past lots of nasties, there's a REWARD at the end. If you see the tripwires and all the crap you have to disarm, it's viewed as an indication that the developers WANT you to go that way.
The presence
Re:It's all about RISK VS REWARD (Score:2)
I think the key is just where you said "fun-obstacle". I mean it's a game, I bought it to blow stuff up. You can't be surprised if I do.
In Half Life 1, if you think about it, you could stop all the problems and solve the game by just not ever doing the experiment in the first place
Re:Goofy Perceptions (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Goofy Perceptions (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine that- go around a city and kill crack-heads.
Re:Goofy Perceptions (Score:5, Interesting)
Therefore if you go left to begin with you miss out on the other directions.
Even assuming I realized that the window worked, I would have still gone to the door first. Jumping through windows is usually a one-way event as well. Jump through, fall down a floor (or at least far enough that you can't hop back in) and continue with the game. So you still would be spending the rest of time wondering what was behind Door Number Three.
Going to the right, to the door, would present a small-risk. Go to the right, check the door. If it's locked at least you know you tried. Note it in case you have to come back or find a conspicuous key around. If it's not locked it's in all likelihood a room or closed-system with either plot or cool extra stuff at the end.
Not to mention that it answers the question: "What's Behind The Door?"
So I wouldn't call it "poor problem solving". I'd call it curiosity.
Re:Goofy Perceptions (Score:2)
What the developers were failing to realize is that in a game situation, it is sometimes fun to do the stupid thing. Player makes a quick save and then proceeds towards the machine guns, kamikaze-style, just for the hell of it.
Re:Goofy Perceptions (Score:1)
Re:Goofy Perceptions (Score:1)
Re:Goofy Perceptions (Score:2)
I played the original Doom when it came out for a few days (until I got bored) because the technology behind it made it so amazing.
Every game I've looked at since has either been painfully simple/boring (e.g. Black and White, GTA), based on the maze concept (e.g. Myst) or just a remake of Doom with fancier graphics (every other FPS).
This sounds kind of cool though - thanks!
Re:Goofy Perceptions (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Goofy Perceptions (Score:2)
Re:Goofy Perceptions (Score:1)
Re:Goofy Perceptions (Score:1)
Re:Goofy Perceptions (Score:1)
Re:Goofy Perceptions (Score:1)
The point's well-taken, but I think this doesn't hold, at least in theory. In a functional programming language you can often replace a thing with a generator, and the thing itself isn't materialized unless it's needed. So, for example, if no-one ever looks at the Sims bookshelf, you don't need to define what's there, just how to generate it if it's needed. In a sufficiently advanced virtual world you might be
Re:Goofy Perceptions (Score:2)
Reading a book on nonlinear equations and chaos math right now, it relates to this topic.
To be able to generate the entire bookshelf in all its complexity on demand, then you will have still to store all the information about the bookshelf. If you only need the bookshelf to give the "read for fun" and "study" options when you click on it, when you can throw away a lot of information and simplify your model. But it is obvious that the only perfect model of a
Re:Goofy Perceptions (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Goofy Perceptions (Score:2)
Lockpicks are rare. Going toward the lasers and machine guys might just suck up health, but there is usually more health than lockpicks.
The longest path (Score:1)
Of course, it gets kind of pointless to carry those 40 antipoisons around till after the final showdown
Of course, people should have checked out the door and the window, but only if the game offers them ways to switch off turrets, or avoid them - but in th
Who is to blame? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think a similar test with non-gamers might have very different results, many gamers have a subconscious feel for how the designers want levels to flow, and most games reward that type of thinking.
Until games that encourage multiple solutions and alternate styles of play (stealth vs. shooting, etc.) are the norm I think the gamers can't be held responsible for dealing with problems in predictable ways.
Re:Who is to blame? (Score:4, Insightful)
When I play thief 2, I always try to kill all the guards, rather than just sneaking round them.
I want to get my money's worth.
Re:Who is to blame? (Score:2)
Re:Who is to blame? (Score:2)
Re:Who is to blame? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Who is to blame? (Score:1)
LK
Conditiononing (Score:5, Insightful)
I would have gone through the window, and then I would have come back and done the other 2 doors as well because I can't be sure that the developers didn't put something I am going to need or some secret mission objective beyond one of those obstacles. Gamers respond to the laws of the game world and the law of the game world says phat loot is always behind the most difficult to open best guarded door.
Put up a sign that says "do not push this button" and tell me how many out of 20 leave the button alone.
Re:Conditiononing (Score:3, Interesting)
In Space Quest, that's the way to get to a (very short) scene from King's Quest.
I'm struggling to remember the dialogue. "Did you hear something...?" "Just the moat monster". Gadzooks, it's been many a year since I played that on a Apple //c.
--
Evan
Re:Conditiononing (Score:1)
And in King's Quest 2, you can watch a trailer thing for one of the Space Quest games. I wanna say its for Space Quest 1, but I haven't played either of those games in the last 11 years.
Re:Conditiononing (Score:1)
Damn inobedient gamers. ^_^
- shazow
Re:Conditiononing (Score:2)
Re:Conditiononing (Score:2)
If you refuse, then the battle ensues.
If you agree, then he says something like, "Sleep, then, for all eternity..."
The game resets and your save file is GONE.
DAMN YOU ENIX!!!
Re:Conditiononing (Score:2)
Rob
Re:Conditiononing (Score:2)
Re:Who is to blame? (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally I can't wait till we are able to play games that allow us utilise varying strategies... I don't mean open-ended games (if a plot is done well in a game I find it can be very rewarding working my way through) but rather games
Re:Who is to blame? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, they lack the twitch element, and they won't use your new $300 video card, but when it comes to sophisticated game paths, there are few other genres on par with this one.
Re:Who is to blame? (Score:3, Interesting)
There's no reason that a CCRPG couldn't be used that invoked the non-combat skills of any RPG on the market today--they just don't do it because it's a pain to program, and those that want creative solutions will ALWAYS be better off finding a real person and playing RPGs the right way.
Re:Who is to blame? (Score:2)
Re:Who is to blame? (Score:1)
The sad thing is that they had that, in the original Deus Ex. The skill point system rewarded you for solving puzzles in inventive ways: sometimes it was even possible to get the skill points from multiple solutions in one game, but even if it wasn't, you'd try all the approaches to see which was mos
Years of training... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, that was one of the great aspects of Deus Ex. There were typically multiple solutions to a puzzle, if you just looked hard enough. We just aren't used to looking for alternate solutions, since most of the time there aren't any.
Re:Years of training... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Years of training... (Score:4, Funny)
True story... (Score:3, Funny)
Of course, my roommate proceeded to simultaneously blow them all to hell with a single rocket 2 minutes later. But it was funny while it lasted.
--LordPixie
Re:Years of training... (Score:4, Insightful)
For many years windows have been plain scenery. Then they became transparent. Now they're openable and useable, but the gamer typically hasn't read the memo about that.
My opinion: the design is broken. There needs to be something in the game to clue the player in to the fact that windows are now useable. Either force him to go through one earlier in the game, or (to be a bit more subtle about it) show another character with abilities roughly analogous to the player using the window.
To be really subtle, the developers could have something "stuck" in a window that the player wants, that would encourage him to play around with it and discover its openability.
Re:Years of training... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Years of training... (Score:2)
It seems that the creators of Deus Ex thought the same way, They put the player between a rock and a hard place, the locked door and an impossible path. RIGHT IN FRONT of the player was a window. They didn't try the window and your solution is to put a HUGE sign on the window that says 'open me.' You propose to create games that are sim
Re:Years of training... (Score:2)
Re:Years of training... (Score:2)
It shows the player what the item is useful for, and where it might come in useful in the future. Basically, it avoids the problem described in the a
Re:Years of training... (Score:2)
But there are an infinite number of things that are not possible in a given game, even Deux Ex. If you see a phone, is it logical to assume you can call someone else in the game? If you see a TV, is it logical to assume you could catch the news and maybe get game hints that way? Do the light switches work? Can you shoot out the lights?
Can you break a window, pick up a shard of glass from it, wield
Re:Years of training... (Score:2)
Poor level design == poor interface (Score:5, Insightful)
What I'm saying is that if every door in the level is useless, you probably won't bother messing with the door right near you, either. And if all the windows are useless, you become unaccustomed to checking them as well.
In a game like Deus Ex, the level itself is your interface. There's no more reason to click on seemingly useless objects in-game than there is to try mashing all the vowels on the keyboard simultaneously every 7 seconds for an hour "just to see what happens". It's a waste of the player's time. And, if the level design isn't at least slightly clear (and a 100% decision rate amongst playtesters to take the "obvious" route indicates that it's not) then the designers are wasting their precious time as well.
Poor level design == level design (Score:2)
So, if you want the player to be aware of his choice of sneaky window vs. hallway of death, you introduce the player to the window concept earlier in the game, by giving them a situation where the window is the only choice.
This is what play testing is for. Find the problem, then fix the problem.
Tutorial much? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm, something I just thought of: why would such a protected installation have a perfectly usable window there allowing intruders to gain entry?
Anyway, the key should be that as games continue to expand the range of what is possible in their system they must help the users discover and explore these new possibilities.
Pick the Right Audience (Score:2, Interesting)
Alternative doesn't mean better (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The door on the left is the locked door, the player decides to open it. However instead of finding what hes looking for he find a room full of guards, some items he doesn't want, or simply failed to open the lock.
2. The window is straight ahead, and the player jumps through. However the height it too great and the guy takes damage from the fall, finds himself back at the beginning of the stage, or has actually jumped three rooms ahead and landed in the middle of 10 guards who were supposed to appear in grounds of 3 or 4 in the previous rooms. (Try playing any of the Hitman games and taking alternative paths/actions while killing seemingly random guards and that patrol that always annoyed you might not appear because you already killed them.)
3. The guy goes to the right having a 90% idea of whats going to happen and what the developers have setup in that hallway, the obvious and maybe a few guards that magicly appear and come through the door at the end of the hall.
Makes me want to scream (Score:5, Insightful)
In every single other game where you have an intersection like that, the locked door's key is always after the turret area (having to return to points breaks up the walking a straight line feeling); the openable window at best leads to a small enclosure where I fight two or three guys to get at a medkit - I'm already at full health or I'm a maschoist, either way, I scorn your medkit window.
You want me to try blowing my way through doors, article writer? I do. After going through the turret area. Why? Because as a function of my time, 99% I'm going down that turret alley anyway for the key, that 1% of doors someone was bright enough to say, "Let's have them expend all their ammo testing which weapon and how many rounds thereof will be required to 'unlock' this door, it'll be clever," aren't exactly a silent majority there, presidentio.
As a simple (and I'm sure soon to be much maligned) example, take the Final Fantasy series. How often is the player provided choices? How significant is their impact on the game? Did you say to Bubba, "Man, I hate those pesky Killas." and go on the story arc that resulted in the village being burned to the ground? Or did you simply get a slightly different irrelevent conversation 10 gameplay hours later?
The problem has never been players unable or unwilling to experiment. It has been the glorious failure of one time gimmicks that trained us to shun experimentation. Oh, there's one door on level 17, third floor, fifth turn that you explode. Every other door on the level opens with a scripted event, key at the end of a turret infested alley,
Look, man. We've figured it out. You've got lots of dead ends, and those turrets aren't there screaming, "Wrong way!" The problem isn't gamers and our lack of problem solving ability. It's consistancy. Look at Metroid Prime. Every door I can remember that exploded under X circumstances looked the same (or had the same tell tale, or whatever). Imagine if none of the doors were marked. You don't need to fix gamers, man. You need to fix developers. CONSISTANCY. AFFORDANCES. STUDY HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION.
Re:Makes me want to scream (Score:2)
Re:Makes me want to scream (Score:2)
We've gotten used to conserving that resource- where health and bullets are a little more common.
Maybe they wanted to explore (Score:2, Interesting)
Reward the easy path... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Reward the easy path... (Score:1)
Ion Storm Austin needs to hire better testers (Score:3, Interesting)
If they had found people that had played similiar games, such as the original Deus Ex, Thief, or even Half Life, then 60 percent of the Thief gamers would go through the window while 80 percent of the Deus Ex and Half Life fans would have gone after the locked door expecting an item.
I'm sorry but multiple paths isn't a new conecpt, it was around in the oringal Deus Ex and Thief games, about 4 years ago. Invisible war being a sequal, I don't expect multiple solutions, I require that.
My personal problem with Invisible War was that the branching was pointless. All branches were shallow and did not require any special skills or abilities. If I'm given the option of blazing guns verse stealth I expect that choice to follow me for atleast 15 minutes, not the 30 seconds it takes to get past that one point. I wanted to feel like my actions defined the character, not always take the path of least resistance and then double back and make sure that nothing was missed with the second path that joined with the first after one room.
Re:Ion Storm Austin needs to hire better testers (Score:2)
Exactly. This is a huge problem with most games. It seems like the mad genius who designs these fotresses likes to fill one branch with dozens of turrets and guards, while placing a simple locked wooden door on the other branch. Of course, that wooden door is impossible to destroy, so maybe he's not so mad after all...
Poor Training (Score:2, Interesting)
Back in the day games required you to have advanced problem solving skills to win. In this day and age of arbitrary gaming and str
Re:Poor Training (Score:2)
As much as I want to agree with your assertion that the old school games trained gamers better (being old school myself), I have to admit that there are modern games being made that require just as much (if not more) skillz as anything in the NES library (Ghouls & Ghosts is not co
Re:Poor Training (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah! I agree! Fuck the casual gamers! If they're not willing to devote their entire lives to playing their games, they shouldn't be playing them at all!
I'm sorry. You raised some very good points, but that sentence just pissed me, an occasional and definitely casual gamer, off.
Re:Poor Training (Score:1)
Makes no difference to me, I create my own depth in games... try running through Super Mario World juggling turtle shells.
Re:Poor Training (Score:4, Insightful)
I love old school games just as much as everyone else. Back when Mario 3 was out, I had memorized all the card layouts to the memory card games, so I would get all the items each and every time. However, the "bombed every wall, shot every guy, flicked every combination of switches" school of game design is a really terrible idea. I mean, in Legend of Zelda, did you really try out all 256 possible combinations for the path through the Lost Woods, because I just talked with the old lady in the cave who told me the path. In fact, most of the time in Zelda, you could figure out where the hidden doors were by just looking at the symmetries in the dungeons. I would hardly call wasting bombs on walls that weren't going to have hidden doors a shining example of thinking. As for Metroid, it's pretty clear that you were not intended to just go around bombing every wall and floor. Remeber what happens if you bombed the wrong passage while looking for the ice beam in Brinstar? A giant pit that would take a ridiculous amount of time to escape, even if you had the ice beam to begin with. If bombing every wall was such a great idea, why was the designer punishing it?
If you want a better example of critical thinking, look at Simon's Quest or Dragon Warrior. Yeah, the stuff was pretty obscurely hidden, but you didn't just have to randomly look everywhere; you could find out what you needed from information presented to you in the game. If you want to just mindless try every possible combination, you aren't gaming's target audience. Actually, may I recommend trying to figure out Bill Gate's PIN number instead? It's the exact same activity, but infinitely more rewarding.
Re:Poor Training (Score:1)
What I mean to say is that nowadays games have arbitrary problems, and back in the day you had to use problem solving skills to get by. Nowadays you just need a strategy guide and nothing else will help you. For example Ogre Battle 64. Great game, don't get me wrong. But to get special items an
As for skipping the locked door ... (Score:5, Interesting)
And lots of games don't let you shoot out windows and go through them. If you want to let people do this, make it clear in the tutorial, or make it the only way to get through a section earlier in the game.
If you really want to make people go through the window and not through the war zone, make the war zone so incredibly difficult that nobody can get through. Eventually, people will look for another way.
Deveopers: stop making things indestructable! (Score:5, Interesting)
I am sick of locked doors, unscalable short piles of office furniture, and unbreakable glass. I have grenades, you have technology. Stop making things indestructable! For gods' sake, I have a fucking CROWBAR, shouldnt I be able to pry something open?
As "interactive" and "dynamic" as half-life 2 claims to be, I know that it doesnt matter that "if it looks like wood, it splinters like wood!", because I'll still be herded along an unavoidable path full of enemies and scripted events. I would appreviate having the alternative method of reaching the end of the level by way of obliterating the entire building, thank you.
Not a fair test (Score:4, Interesting)
First question: if I enter the T to examine the window, will I come under fire from the turrets?
Second question: Can I look through the window into the room beyond without breaking/opening it? I've not played Deus Ex, but in some games windows can be astonishingly opaque until smashed open.
In a fire situation, you neutralize the threats you can see first, then you look for the threats you couldn't see at first.
Here's roughly how I'd approach something like this:
At this point, if I start taking fire from the turrets I will HAVE to deal with them. IF this is how the setup worked it is little wonder most people dealt with the turrets first!
Re:Not a fair test (Score:2)
OR, you've played games like Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast, and you've been conditioned that if you jump through a window (or a door, or even just walking down an uneven path) you'll run into a laser tripmine that can only be found by running into it, dying, and reloading.
It's their own fault... (Score:3, Insightful)
While they might have done it with good intent (to give the player all the choices all the time), the choice itself loses meaning and the player becomes frustrated that he can't see where the other paths lead to (unless he reloads and trys out all three of them - which is probably also not what Ion Storm had in mind).
More option requires better game design. (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the primary roles of good game design is teaching the rules of the game / game world. Poor game design, as in the example, ignores this and hinges on the idioms and habits prior games.
What I hope to see in the future is management of the knowledge with a player mental model. Every time a game rule is described/demonstrated/achieved, the mental model takes notice. With this info, a game manager can make sure that the player is both knowledgable enough to attempt the next challenge, as well as checking that the player isn't so familar with the problem concepts as too be bored. When the gap between current and required knowledge is too great, the game manager has a checklist of skills to teach. These could then trigger mini-games, sub-plots, cut scenes, or new quests.
Further, you could extend the player mental model from just a skills check list into statistics of habits. Depending on the designer's bent, you could use this to encourage diversity (offer better rewards in non-standard routes), specialization (aggressive action receives offensive tools), provide bottleneck challenges (aggressive action leeds to a lockpicking bottleneck), and even attempt player matching in online games.
The long term outlook is to design a system that can keep players entertained even in the most open of worlds such as the massively multiplayer persistent online worlds.
Anm
PS - hire me.
Stay away from the Windows! (Score:5, Insightful)
Most games don't have a full interactive environment where doors and windows can be used. How many times have you gone through game levels with structures full of obviously fake, useless doors? Or played a game that has useable doors, the majority of which are purposely and permanently locked?
Windows are often just (you're looking for a pun here, aren't you?) wall candy. Most games don't allow you to open or use open windows, so why bother? I think that's something gamers have learned over time. Avoid wasting time on Windows, it's useless.
Programmmers and level designers don't have the time or resources to make completely detailed levels with useable doors/windows. Most are rushed to the market ASAP to satisfy some parent company's money hunger-- so who has time to make real, working levels?
Maybe we've learned to live with limited-environment games to the point where we look for the obvious 'working' door, the hidden switch, or even the linear route. (linear... that's a different topic)
Re:Stay away from the Windows! (Score:3, Interesting)
More than enough. However, the problem that I enounter isn't with doors being unusuable and fake, but with the fact that you can't tell them apart from ones that can or should be usuable. Even then, you can't tell
Why is Neolithic Bad? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why? Pure fun. From listening to friends who finished it, I believe there are plenty of intelligent, thinking gamers out there who will not put their head through the wall figuring out how to finish a game. Not me--that's (usually) not my style. I like the fact that less ham-handed ways of solving games are available, for the rare times when I feel like doing the intellectual thing, but usually, well, thag smash crush.
That said, Deus Ex 2 licked the sweat from a dead man's b***s. The plot, the dialogues, the voice acting, the characters were cheesy and contrived and the developers should look to themselves before criticizing the gamers. Maybe the people blowing up the turrets were just annoyed that they'd just spent 40 bucks on such a crappy game?
Well it's their own fault (Score:2)
Sure games like Splinter Cell and such require you to do that, but still.
Can't expect someone to shoot their way through 30 terrorists, throwing gernades, maybe even pulling out a knife to finish a few off.... then opt to climb out a window just because there's more resistance.
It's just a conflict of game play.
Yes well, (Score:2)
I think game developers should stop worrying about this kind of rubbish and get to worrying about making games entertaining and enthrawling again. The very fact that this sort of thing gets a story is a blatant sign of the times. All is not peachy in the game industry. Give us some novel and interesting games, please.
how "usable" was the window? (Score:5, Insightful)
All things being equal, my bet would be that the window completely lacks what Don Norman calls [amazon.com] "affordances": indications that a thing can be used, for what purpose it may be used, and how one should go about using it. Is the window open, or at least half open? Is there some appealing path or alluring object visible beyond the window?
This is the sort of thing game designers need to take into account, but too often they rely on trial-and-error gameplay or "herding" to direct the player.
I blame the coders (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you have any idea how many games I've played where "going to the right" really was the only option to the player, how many game publishers I've had to deal with that believe that a game has to do nothing more than be time-consuming to be any fun? How many times have you come to a difficult spot in a game, told yourself "There's got to be an easier way to do this," looked around, and found no easier way?
If the publishers want gamers to use more subtle solutions they should put those subtleties into their games more consistently. In the example given, I wouldn't be surprised if the window wasn't used because it was the only time such a simple solution was put into the game at all, a gesture for the programmer to say "Ooh, look! I'm clever!" before going back to giving us nothing but hack-and-slash.
I really wish there was more explanation (Score:2)
But from what I can gather, using experience from the first game, which I beat, that I'd want to take out the turrets before they became active and see what special item is over there. In Deus Ex 1 there were a waste of empty rooms and pointless windows, so the developers themselves have no one to blame but themselves.
Re:I really wish there was more explanation (Score:2)
The same unfixable flaws that appear in Deus Ex: Invisible War appear in effectivly every other game. If you really have such high standards for Deus Ex, then you might as well apply it consistantly to all other games (i.e. not purchase any game on the market.)
If you are really referring to a flaw that is fixable then that's a different story. In that case, you can either post it on some Deus Ex f
Re:I really wish there was more explanation (Score:2)
As for the empty rooms, I easily remember the Hilton in New York, upstairs with all the empty rooms that were boarded up. In one you could even hear a couple "acting up." Unfortunately only one or two of those actually open.
Re:I really wish there was more explanation (Score:2)
Agreed. It can be damn hard to tell if a window is for looking out of, if it's for jumping through, if it's for decoration, or what.
Two examples, spoilers ahoy. The first is for Robotech: Battlecry, the second is for Fallout: BOS (pc version).
In the second last mission for R:BC, there are lots of instances where, it turns out, you're supposed to stand behind some hunks of concrete rubble that happent o look like sniper hides. If you stand behind these hunks, enemies magically stop shooting at you. T
"Game" medium synonymous w/ hypergratification (Score:1)
The real question is (Score:4, Insightful)
Cultural training (Score:1)
The message is obvious (Score:2)
If I'm playing an FPS type of game (one that requires twitch and speed) then that's all I want to do.
The developers need to change their ways. (Score:2)
The developers are, in a limited extent, gods. They will create this virtual world in a short period of time, comparable to the biblical story of creation. If you want to uphold the biblical parallel,
Re:The developers need to change their ways. (Score:2)
You can sneak