'Losing For The Win' In Games 159
simoniker writes "Designer Ben Schneider (Empire Earth, EyeToy: AntiGrav, Titan Quest) has written a new article exploring the possibility of enticing your players through the power of defeat. From the piece: 'Some of the most memorable moments in games depend heavily on reversals to kick their dramatic arcs forward, from Planetfall to Fable to Beyond Good & Evil to Deus Ex. And yet, as an industry, we clearly have a lot to learn — and a lot to invent. So, then, how do you draw a clear line between player failure and dramatic reversal? It is a question well worth pondering.' In other words, if the game forces the player to get his ass kicked, can the player ever forgive it, or is it the key to some really interesting moments when used in a positive way?"
Metroid has a battle at the start (Score:3, Interesting)
Sam and Max hit the road(original for 386). If you ride the Cone of Tradjedy, you lose all your items. My friend loaded up a saved game after he rode it, and he couldn't complete the game anymore. I come over his house and ride the Cone of Tradjedy because he says not to ride it, and then I collect all his items at the lost and found.
I think loses and setbacks are ok in games. I mean if you can't lose, its not a game really is it?
Re:uhh (Score:3, Interesting)
Or Megaman 1 Dr Wiley stage. You bring up an excellent point. In the golden era of video games, it was perfectly fine to make stuff near impossible to complete. Now with so many different games to play, people get sickened if stuff is too tough.
(Aside)That's why I like the leveling concept. If you make a game that's actiony, but make it so bosses and higher levels are incredibly tough, you can always add a leveling concept to the game. Super skilled players will have the fight of their life trying to beat the game in under a certain time. Average players will go back and repeat earlier quests to power up their character. Not many games do this. Only ones off the top of my head are Castlevania:Symphony of the night and River City Ransom. I'm a big fan of action games where you can level your dude too.
Dead Rising ... somewhat similar (Score:3, Interesting)
At first, it sounds dumb. Why would you ever want to replay parts of the game again? For a long time, I resisted doing this. However, the game got extraordinarily difficult after a while, and I eventually got myself locked into an unwinnable situation: I had saved the game at a certain part of a mission, and there was literally not enough time for me to complete it in time, thus forcing a "game over" scenario every time. Grudgingly, I accepted my fate, and did the "save and quit" method.
Surprisingly, I had a blast going through the beginning part of the game again. Having your skills carry over (which in Dead Rising equates to some very important things such as health, stats, special moves, and item capacity) made the initial parts of the game a LOT easier. And since I had a good idea of what was going on, I could position myself to "be in the right place at the right time". Thus, this second playthrough ended up being a lot different than my first run.
I almost think that Dead Rising was designed so that the player would have to restart over at some point. However, it's too bad that this was not messaged appropriately. I have a friend who quit the game, complaining that it was "impossibly hard", since he refused to restart the game over.
Games that have tried to incorporate this (Score:2, Interesting)
The one exception that springs to mind is, surprisingly, EverQuest 2; there are a couple of quests/events where I feel the SOE team have actually incorporated losing into the storyline very effectively.
The first I can think of is a more minor one - if your character chooses to betray his home city of Freeport to go and live in Qeynos (or vice versa) you embark on a quest series that leads you into sabotage work against the city you wish to leave. The spying/sabotage missions ultimately culminate in your inevitable capture by the city guard. Your companions are killed and you are left for dead, eventually smuggled out and revived by sympathizers from your destination city. While not a final defeat, you progress through the increasingly dangerous sabotage missions knowing that eventually your actions will be discovered, and there is no way to complete the betrayal quest without this "failure".
The second quest involving failure was a special limited-time quest that ran last year prior to the Echoes of Faydwer expansion release. The EoF expansion reintroduced the influence of the deities to the game world, and as a foreshadowing of this, there was a limited time quest players could do for the prophets foretelling the return of each god. The quest for Innoruuk (god of Hate) involved a magic spell that sent you back in time to assume control of one of the key figures in an important historical battle during which the forces of good and evil were attempting to capture a particularly important magical scroll. The aim of the quest, you were told, was to alter history and retrieve the scroll for the benefit of Innoruuk. As you entered the quest, your class, level, equipment, everything was altered so that you appeared to be the dark elf shadow knight in the historical battle. The quest involved commanding your troops to attack the enemy, and fighting your way to the member of the "good" side who had the scroll required, and then escaping with the scroll.
The quest, however, was written so that it was impossible to win. It was not possible to alter history. While you could complete the first part of the quest and make your way to your target, reinforcements from the good side (extremely powerful, undefeatable ones) arrived before you could complete the mission. The quest forced you to watch as all your army was decimated by the arrivals, and then you also. Interestingly, one of the "good" gods gave the reverse of this quest, where good aligned players played an ally of the target the evils had to assassinate, and were equally unable to "win" the scenario (although reinforcements arrived, it was not in time to prevent the assassination of the guy with the scroll, etc.)
In these quests the EQ2 designers got around the feeling of personal defeat by setting the quest in a historical "flashback", yet also avoided the setback being entirely cut-scene narrative with no player involvement whatsoever. The resulting quest was very powerful and exciting.
These are just two examples of how current MMO's have incorporated failure scenarios into their play. It's challenging, but clearly possible, and the SOE team at least seem to be aware of the excitement and different perspective that it can bring to a game. I would hope that they will continue to push the boundaries of tradition further, and hopefully other designers will follow also.
Re:FreeSpace II (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're going to use Half-Life as an example, I don't think the "end choice" is much of a parallel.
I mean, whether you go out the tram ("yes" to G-Man's proposal) or say put ("no") is only a slight difference in the final cutscene. Saying yes only gets you to the credits sooner; saying no gives you “a situation you cannot possibly win” and also goes to credits. It's the same thing, just two different flavors.
I still think it's in there... let's see... [/me rummages about]
Here it is; at the end of the chapter, Apprehension, the final "scene" pits you against a room full of cloaked assasin-like chicks. The only logical way to proceed is through the large loading-dock doors (...opened by a lever on the top platform; a deadly path unless you get the assassins first.)
As you proceed to the last logical doorway, you see a first-aid station on the far wall. The player has made it through some terribly punishing challenges and is likely thinking, "Oh, yes! I get health now!" (I know I did!)
Walking straight towards it, the lights go out, there's some sounds of a struggle, then the chuckling comments of a clever pair of enemy Marines. You're caught ...and it's an essential part of the story.
Remembering when I played this the first time, it looked like that was it. Game over, you get pummeled. I kept thinking to myself, "What did I do wrong? How do I avoid this after restoring my last savegame?"
Watching in anticipation of the final credits, I realized that I was still playing! The James-Bond-diabolical-slow-death garbage compactor was a puzzle you had only 30 seconds to solve. It was exhilirating! I felt like I'd been given another chance.
In a nutshell, I loved it. It felt like the game had started anew. Brilliant!
Now the question is, how to apply this experience to other games without looking like a knock-off of Half-Life?
NWN2 has two, and it sucked (Score:4, Interesting)
If you haven't played the game yet, stop reading. Stop reading anyway unless you are in the mood for a rant.
Okay, you were warned. In Neverwinter Nights 2 you have two "dramatic" moments. The opening act has you partnered with two childhood friends. A male fighter and a female wizard. Both like you start at level 1 and get maybe 1 or 2 levels during the opening act.
Your village is attacked because of you are the destined one. How original. Young farm person at just the right age to go out into the world has evil (wich for some reason has been laying low between the events of the opening credits and this moment) attack your peacefull village of your youth.
There are even in pulp fantasy variations of this you know. Conan was a slave his entire youth. Willow was a mature adult (well he had kids).
Oh well, you are attacked and for no very good reasing you get a cutscene were the girl suddenly decides to help her teacher out (who doesn't even look like he needs help) and gets herself killed. Drama!
Well no. It has everything wrong with it that the poster talked about. You first think it is your fault, then find it isn't and therefore feel only frustration. What a way to kick of an RPG that is supposed to have a influence system. Oh, and the lesson? Well listen to warnings and don't get in over your head. Good warning, except that it never has to be apllied in the rest of the game. You never meet anyone more powerfull then you that you can't handle. You never are asked to let someone more experienced handle a battle OR do a tactical retreat. So what is the point?
But that ain't the only one to snuff it. Later another girl joins your party and voila, she gets killed too. Again nothing you can do about it. Drama? No not really, hell the game doesn't even allow drama. If you really cared about her, you would be a little miffed you don't even get to kill her killer. At all, not even after you have no use for him anymore.
Oh, and the people from your village that survived the first attack? Well, they are killed off too. What? You are the desitned hero, so everyone you grew up has to die so that no stories of you running around with no pants as a kid can every ruin your heroic reputation. It is a rule!
Drama is nice and all, but the simple fact is that YOU are supposed to be in control. So if the game removes control, then anything that happens that you are supposed to be in control about just isn't "real".
Drama can happen outside your control (that is really totally outside your control, rather then just having the game take control) OR because of a choice you made.
System Shock 1 & 2 and the first Unreal did it very effective. Every bit of "drama" had already happened. You were in total control of events in your own time but naturally NOT in control over things that had already happened before your time started.
Finding out that the person whose emails you have been finding has died a tragic dead WORKS when it is clear it happened outside your time. You couldn't have gone faster or anything. So you do not feel cheated by the game. It worked for me.
Do you want to know one of the most dramatic moments in games for me? Planescape Torment, the dead nations, has an undead NPC who has lost her name. You can help her find it or give her a new one. The way that extremely short non-combat, non-fedex, non-runaround, non-loot, quest is told just worked for me. The entire area is nothing short of brilliant, undeads who are not just cannon-fodder, but that element is just damned good as it impressed upon me the sadness of an undead existence, destined to only rot away further and further while only memories remain of your former live.
Brilliant. And nobody dies, no cutscenes take away control. Just you, and an NPC and a few simple lines.
From the days of Wing Commander games have attempted to get me to feel drama by snatching defeat from the jaws of my hard won victory. It don't work for me.
Games are NOT movies. LEARN this deve
Re:uhh (Score:3, Interesting)
Home games are easy so you'll beat it and buy another one.
System Shock 2 (Score:3, Interesting)
SS2 has one of the biggest "reversals" in a game ever. You go through the first half of the game clinging to the hope that Polito, the one human who's spoken to you, will be able to help you get out of this mess of mutated humans and haywire robots. That's all shattered when it's revealed that Polito was dead all along, and it's really been SHODAN egging you on the whole time. The second half of the game involves you being her (now witting) pawn as you follow her instructions to destroy The Many.
It's an ingenious plot twist that makes you feel, despite your success in finally reaching Polito('s rotting corpse), like you actually lost. And every success you have ends up feeling a bit hollow as well, because SHODAN told you to do it. It makes the voice logs you find lying around that much more valuable, as you try to cling to whatever humanity you can, because that's the only real victory in sight.
NOLF (Score:3, Interesting)
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You proceed through a long series of misadventures - ultimately failed missions. By the end of the game it turns out that the agency had a mole who was sabotaging your missions. The agency knew about this and set you up, in order to find the mole. A final surprise awaited at the end of the credits. Overall, a GREAT game. Alas, followed by a very disappointing sequel.