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Games Entertainment

The Player's Bill of Rights 213

Posted by Zonk from the fight-for-your-right dept.
Gamasutra has a Designer's Notebook column up this week offering up a Player's Bill of Rights. Written by Ernest Adams, the article decries the many indignities that we as players should never be forced to suffer. From the article: "The Right to Feedback: The player has a right to know how she's doing, and in particular, to some means of determining if she's in danger of losing the game. If the player doesn't get feedback, she can't adjust her strategy, and the outcome will feel random. Players need to know whether their approach is working or not."
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The Player's Bill of Rights More

The Player's Bill of Rights

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  • This bill is too long (Score:4, Insightful)

    by melikamp ( 631205 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @05:42PM (#13422608) Homepage Journal

    This and other bills are too long. I think that all of the points in all of these bills will be addressed if we only get the right to

    (0) Return a game for a full refund if we do not like it.

    • On a personal note: I haven't bought a single game since WoW came out, but I played many warez versions. Still, I guarantee you, if I had the above right, I would actually buy games and keep some of them, dirty criminal that I am...
      • Agreed, but for a different reason than sticking it to the Man: I recently downloaded Advent Rising because I've discovered that some third-person games make me nauseous; Jedi Knight 2, for instance, was so bad that I couldn't complete it, and the boat sequence in Half-Life 2 gave me headaches. Interestingly enough, the nausea effect seemed to be cumulative; that is, no matter how short a period of time I played either game, I would eventually (after 3 or 4 hours) get sick after even playing the game for a
        • Try playing on a smaller monitor.

          Motion sickness is caused when the feedback to your eyes contradicts the feedback of your inner ear (which is where you sense of balance comes from.)

          I can play Quake for hours and hours on a 20" monitor with no problem, but HALO on my big-screen TV is another matter. A half-hour of driving the Warthog ("Puma", whatever) and I need to stop playing and go for a walk outside or something.

          It's becoming a common enough problem that it seems there may be an opening here for arcad

    • Re:This bill is too long (Score:5, Funny)

      by wbren ( 682133 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @06:05PM (#13422725) Homepage
      I think that all of the points in all of these bills will be addressed if we only get the right to
      (0) Return a game for a full refund if we do not like it.
      I had an opportunity to view the rough drafts of the bill. Your suggestion nearly made it into the final version. Here's a history:

      First Draft (0) The Right to Have Hell Freeze Over...

      The author felt the wording was a little loose and vague, so he modified it slightly:

      Second Draft (0) The Right to Pirate the Latest Games Through Legitimate Retail Channels...

      The wording was still a little bit off, so he re-worded it yet again:

      Third Draft (0) The Right to Return a Game for a Full Refund if We Don't Like It...

      Then he came down from his acid trip and decided to remove that right altogether because it didn't make any sense to someone not on an acid trip. The literary process is really quite interesting. But seriously, that suggestion makes no sense to a retailer. Software generally has a return policy of a) no returns if it's opened or b) exchange for the exact same title (to protect against defective media). That won't change as long as publishers care about preventing piracy.

      • Software generally has a return policy of a) no returns if it's opened or b) exchange for the exact same title (to protect against defective media).

        OK, so how many exchanges for the same title does it take to convince a store that every copy of a given work will be defective in the same way?

      • LOL that's funny as hell.

        Seriously, of course it does not make any sense for the retailer. It is the gamers' right! You know, just like retailers have a right to refuse service to people not wearing shoes. I like going barefoot but I won't cry about getting kicked out of Best Buy for that because I respect their right to be selective.

        And also, retailers do not have to eat the returns. They can simply pass them over to designers. I completely agree that it is in the designers' best interest to make cheap

        • Seriously, of course it does not make any sense for the retailer. It is the gamers' right!

          And why is that? Why do you have the right to act like a complete idiot and buy crap that you have not put any research into, then stiff the retailer for the cost and hassle of shipping it back to the publisher when you start suffering buyer's remorse? How is that your right?

          One phrase comes to mind: Caveat emptor - let the buyer beware. With a few exceptions that are specifically spelled out in various state statu
        • I'm alutaphobic you insensitive clod!
      • That won't change as long as publishers care about preventing piracy.

        Next you're going to tell us that airline tickets are non-transferable and non-refundable to prevent terrorism, right?

        Here's a quick question for you.. What's easier: downloading the cracked version of a game over the internet without getting up and going to the store, or going out, buying a game, ripping the CD, breaking the copy protection, and returning the game. Or better, going to blockbuster and renting the game, copying it, and drop

        • Or better, going to blockbuster and renting the game, copying it, and dropping it in the night return?

          Blockbuster does not carry PC games because copyright owners have successfully lobbied for exclusive control of rental for all computer programs other than console games. See 17 USC 109 [bitlaw.com].

        • You can't photocopy an airline ticket and use it to get on the plane though. You can copy software and still use it. Your example is not valid. However, I do agree that airlines' policies on ticket returns/transfers are a load of garbage.

          Now, back to the point. I work for a major US retailer, and people do try to return games and software titles several times a week, saying "It didn't work; I want a refund." That always raises suspicion since our software return policy is clearly visible at our registers

          • If you offer a replacement copy and they refuse, you know they are probably just trying to rip off the company.

            OK, I'll dutifully take home the replacement copy and bring it back the next day, claiming that it was defective in exactly the same way.

            We make exceptions in rare cases

            Such as for somebody who has pointed out legitimate defects in one dozen copies of this title?

            We all know copy protection is easy to defeat.

            Even on the GameCube and the Nintendo DS? Though those systems have been cra

            • OK, I'll dutifully take home the replacement copy and bring it back the next day, claiming that it was defective in exactly the same way.

              If you exchanged the same title consistently, we would simply ask you to leave the building and tell you to take it up with our corporate office. It's happened before at my location, and I'm sure it will happen again if you drop by ;-)

              Even on the GameCube and the Nintendo DS? Though those systems have been cracked to where anybody can run homebrew, they haven't been crack

              • Now, it's a different story if the product is advertised falsely in some way (e.g. a product's box says it can open Word documents when in fact it cannot).

                If my computer meets the printed system requirements for a game, and the game crashes on my computer, the product is defective, right? How would the local corporate branch of your store chain react? I hope I don't have to take the issue to small claims court.

              • I was given a copy of Pirates! for my birthday. I put the cd into my computer to install it, and the machine crashed. I tried again, it crashed again. Returning the game got me another copy, which also crashed my computer. In the end I took an older CDROM drive I had laying around and crammed it into my computer to give it a try. Magically, the game worked using this drive. Now, if I were a typical computer user, I wouldn't have had that drive laying around. I'd have had to spend another $40 or so o
          • Now, back to the point. I work for a major US retailer, and people do try to return games and software titles several times a week, saying "It didn't work; I want a refund." That always raises suspicion since our software return policy is clearly visible at our registers and on the back of the purchase receipt. If you offer a replacement copy and they refuse, you know they are probably just trying to rip off the company.

            Why assume they're trying to rip off the company, and not assume that the game is a bugg
          • You can't photocopy an airline ticket and use it to get on the plane though. You can copy software and still use it. Your example is not valid.

            I would argue that photocopying your plane ticket has the same effect on the revenues of an airline as copying the CD of a game does to the game publisher... But that wasn't the point of the example. The point was that they are both rediculous policies that are enforced for the sole benefit of the seller (the airline / the publisher) and passed off to the consumer wi

          • Bullshit (Score:5, Informative)

            by Moraelin ( 679338 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @03:15AM (#13425336) Journal
            You seem to define "deffective" as in "the CD was physically unreadable", which is just about the only thing that would be solved by giving someone another copy. What if the software itself is broken and deffective? Because that's the actual product I bought there, and the CD was just the medium it comes on.

            E.g., the german version of Victoria threw a script _syntax_ error right at the start of a new campaign. Yes, you've read that right. Not a crash to desktop, not some graphics glitch, _nothing_ even remotely blamable on my hardware or drivers. A script _syntax_ error. That game couldn't work as released on _any_ hardware.

            E.g., a german version again, Everquest 2 was released with a completely broken translation, which actually did impact gameplay. NPCs and items would be named completely differently in the quest text and in the actual game, making it literally impossible to do what you were told. The NPC you were told to kill simply didn't even exist in the game. (And generally, you know it's bad when even the few fans tell you to try translating it word-for-word back into English, to figure out some texts.)

            E.g., Phantasy Star Online Blue Burst doesn't seem to be able to connect at all on my XP machine, although it works flawlessly on my Windows 2000 machine. (So, no, it's not a case of ports being blocked by the router or ISP.) Mind you, I needed to dig through tech support faqs even just to get it to the point it would try to connect: first it didn't even let me input my name and password. No, literally, typing anything in those input boxes was a futile exercise. The only key they accepted was basically escape to cancel it.

            E.g., to take an older game, take The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall. The collision detection was so bad, that you'd fall into the void even when running on flat groud, or when teleporting back to town. I'm picking on it, instead of newer ones, because it's a clear-cut case of deffective software, and can't be blamed on drivers or hardware. It took many _months_ for Bethesda to try to fix it, and eventually they gave up and made a cheat code to teleport you back to the beginning of the map if you fell into the void.

            E.g., Morrowind was shipped with a pretty nasty race condition that resulted in a crash to desktop when zoning. But as is usually the case with race conditions, on different PCs it produced wildly different results. On some you had a crash every couple of hours, but some people couldn't even leave the starting ship at all, because the game would crash when they went through the hatch. I'm not even going into the aspect that a game that crashes at all _is_ deffective, but the fact remains that some people just couldn't play it as shipped.

            Etc.

            So giving them a replacement CD is gonna solve... what? No, seriously.

            Yeah, they were sooo trying to rip you off, by not accepting a game they couldn't run at all. Not. Geesh.
      • Software generally has a return policy of a) no returns if it's opened or b) exchange for the exact same title (to protect against defective media). That won't change as long as publishers care about preventing piracy.

        Preventing privacy huh? Here's a little aside; my room mate bought a DVD player a few nights ago so we could watch my vast collection of DVD's on something other than my computer in my room. So we watched Spun and it worked fine, awesome we thought. The next night we tried to watch Eternal S
    • We already have that right, in most states at least. I cannot speak for other countries. Know your rights [cornell.edu]!
    • So, I pretty much already have that "right". :)
    • I've been burned enough times by game distributors that it would be better to ask me "where do you return the USENET version of your game that you downloaded so you wouldn't get screwed (no flowers, no kiss) again by a game that won't work on your computer without crashing every 10 minutes"

  • The Right Not To Be Insulted (Score:5, Interesting)

    by wbren ( 682133 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @05:45PM (#13422623) Homepage
    I disagree with that "right"--I still can't believe I'm replying to a post about a Player's Bill of Rights, only on slashdot. In some games, insulting and being insulted by NPCs is an important part of the game. Take Neverwinter Nights as an example. Depending on whether or not an NPC insults you or is ill-tempered, you might make different choices, ultimately causing a different outcome. Likewise, if you insult an NPC they may not be very helpful, which could change the outcome as well. Overall it was a good list of what should(n't) be done in a game. I especially liked the Right to Control Cut-Scenes, that's a must-have.
    • There's a significant difference to being insulted within the game (by other characters, etc) and being insulted directly by the game author/designer.

      One is part of the game, and can contribute positively to the game experience. The other is just going to convince people not to play the game.
    • I think there's a difference betwen insulting the player (what the article seems to dislike) and insulting the player's character (what you're talking about). Having an NPC call my character "a fat, smelly elf" is much different from a game actually insulting me.

      I will say that the article was complete trash though... most of these aren't "rights", they're just guidelines for good games--and incredibly OBVIOUS ones at that! I mean, c'mon, look at these:

      -The Right to Quit, Pause, Save and Resume the Game
      -

      • I'm looking through my collection of games right now (from all the major consoles), and I can't find a single one that didn't come with a playing manual

        Most used cartridge games nowadays are sold without a manual because the cardboard packaging that was common when those games were sold new did not make it easy to keep the manual next to the game. Or by "all the major consoles" do you refer to disc-based consoles (PS1, PS2, GameCube, Xbox) and absolutely nothing else?

        didn't allow you to save your pro

        • Yeah, 20 years ago, these were issues. But the article wasn't written 20 years ago. Today it's just a no-brainer.

          • But the article wasn't written 20 years ago.

            Jakks Pacific's Plug and Play TV Games use technology from the NES era in order to let the company push the price below $20 per unit. In fact, a lot of the electronic games sold today are handheld games with large, custom-shaped LCD pixels, which is Game & Watch technology developed 25 years ago. And how can a web game allow saving without cookies, which unknowing users like to delete first and ask questions later?

      • How about the right to save and quit when I damn want to, or _need_ to. I remember one game which made me go literally for 10 (yes, TEN!) hours before it gave me a save point.

        • Re:Don (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Soul-Burn666 ( 574119 )
          The best solution is the nethack solution. You can quit & save whenever you want, but you can only load it once. i.e, it's not save per se but rather stand-by.

          At least for parts where you usually don't have any save spots, it will solve the problem. For the save points, it can be allowed to save and load how many times you'd like, as expected from a save point.
          • True, I could live with that. Quite happily, in fact.
          • The best solution is the nethack solution. You can quit & save whenever you want, but you can only load it once. i.e, it's not save per se but rather stand-by.

            Ahhh, that's why I have a little script that copies my save file before launching Nethack. If I go and get myself killed in a stupid way, I can just copy the file back to the Nethack directory and retry that part again.
      • Instructions: While technically any game came with a manual, I can think of several which came with piss-poor manuals, including one whose manual seemed to be made for a completely different game. It described stuff that didn't even exist in the game, or didn't work even vaguely like in the manual. I can only assume that they made the manual at a very early point, and changed their mind about half the design by the time they finished it.

        Winning: I can think of a lot of games which, while technically weren't

    • I especially liked the Right to Control Cut-Scenes, that's a must-have.

      Some of the shorter unskippable cut scenes have a purpose: allowing the game to load data while preserving immersion. I play one game, Katamari Damacy, that inserts ten-second cut scenes (<King> "Your clump has reached 3.0 meters. Still just a toddler, but now there's a way through here.") every five minutes or so, so that it can load more parts of the game world that it keeps fenced off until you get a large enough clump to ro

  • Get on with it (Score:4, Insightful)

    by vga_init ( 589198 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @06:21PM (#13422794) Journal

    The points forwarded in the article are mere childsplay. For the most part, game designers have been doing all of these things for years; we're talking standard fare. Individual games and genres tend to suffer differently in these cases, but I don't think the problem is as rampant as the author makets it out to be. Right not to be insulted? I've never played a commercial game worth a lick that was like that; the best example they could come up with was a cell phone clone of minesweeper? Apparently this is not such a big problem.

    Instead of focusing on things that games ALREADY do, I'd rather like to see some rights that consumers need such as the right to fresh, creative content. It seems like the most popular games today are sequels and/or rehashes of old game engines and ideas. Where's the excitement?

    Also, gamers should have the right to OWN their games. That's right folks; they should be able to pay once and get a full copy, preferrebly with source. Along with this goes the right to play your game; I own dozens of Windows and DOS games that are no longer playable on my current systems. More games should be liberated so that we can port our treasured games and continue playing them.

    See, now we're talking about rights, not this "I can't figure out what the buttons for my game" nonsense.

    • You'd be surprised how many major full-price PC or console games violate at least one of those points. Sure, if by "rampant" you mean "everyone violating most of them", it's not that bad, but violating at least one happens often enough to make me happy that someone wrote that list. I wish they could also make it mandatory reading for every wannabe game designer.

      Sure, you're right in that it all sounds like common sense, and it's stuff that's been "discovered" two decades ago. Nothing new and revolutionary i
      • Good point! I realized that one reason why I have so few complaints is because I'm not a very ferocious gamer; I usually just play games that I've investigated thoroughly and confirmed are good, so naturally my experience leaves less to be desired. Of course, what appears to be common sense to me may very well be elusive to *some* designers. I just hope the situation isn't as bad as it's made to sound here.
        • Well, I really don't have a life, so I buy pretty much everything released. I actually have a copy of Daikatana, or games like Aiken's Artefact which AFAIK sold a grand total of 800 copies. Or you know the Penny Arcade strip where Gabe ends up buying Barbie Horse Adventures because nothing else was released the whole summer? I actually went to the game shops to look for that game, after reading that strip.

          At any rate, well, "bad" is a very relative thing. As I've said, it's not like a majority of games comm

  • The Right to Logical Gameplay (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ComputerSherpa ( 813913 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @07:02PM (#13423017) Homepage
    When my character is presented with a puzzle, the puzzle may seem incredibly arcane and complicated at first glance, but when it is complete, I should be able to say "Ah! That makes sense. If my character had spent enough thought and observation on this puzzle, he/she could have figured it out without the need for a cheat, a walkthrough, or a brute-force." Puzzles need to make sense, or you're just torturing the player needlessly.

    Likewise, game designers should not needlessly impair the player's progress. Designers should keep the characteristics of the player-character in mind and design environments accordingly. If I am playing a fireball-hurling Mage, a wooden chest should not prove too difficult for me to open, key or no key. If I am playing a human, when confronted by a waist-height fence, I should be able to hop over it if I choose instead of worrying about the silly lock. (That doesn't mean I shouldn't be looking over my shoulder when I get to the other side, watching for dogs, guards, or laser turrets.) Any player should be able to ask, at any time, "Well, why can't I do this?" and receive a better answer than "Because you're not supposed to do it that way" (e.g. "Because you won't fit there" or "Because you'll die"). Being blocked by an invisible wall for no apparently good reason is frustrating and insulting. Put some thought into it and make a game that we can get into.

  • The Right to Play. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ElleyKitten ( 715519 ) <kittensunrise@@@gmail...com> on Sunday August 28, 2005 @07:36PM (#13423201) Journal
    From the first right: >>The majority of the time a player spends in a game, he should be making decisions, exploring, creating, overcoming challenges, or otherwise acting upon the game world in some way. Players come to play, not to watch cut-scenes. Notice that I say the majority of the time. Non-interactive elements are not forbidden, but they should not take up more than 50% of the playing time of the game.

    Maybe I'm the minority, but I like cut-scenes. I play games instead of watching movies or TV. While I enjoy action games, I love JRPGs that have hours and hours of cut-scenes, and I really wouldn't notice if the cut-scenes took up more than the 50% of the game (though I usually do all the sidequests, so I highly doubt even close to the time I spend is half cutscenes). I could even imagine a developer making a RPG-like game that didn't have battles, just exploring and cut-scenes for non-gamers. My point is that people like different things, and that as a group demanding that games have a limit to cut-scenes is about as pointless as demanding no more Ecco the Dolphin games. If you don't like it, don't buy it, but trying to stop if from being made makes no sense at all.

    Of course, it's not like this matters as all, this article will be forgetten by the time the next thing is posted on slashdot (or it will be the next thing posted on slashdot), but I just felt like giving out my two cents.
  • "The Right to Play." - Taste is like the bottom on this one (split). If the game promises gameplay and only have "intermission" videos then I'll be disappointed, but if I like stories and the game promises that I might enjoy it just like I enjoy a movie.

    "The Right to Win." - I guess most of the offenders here are old shooter games with 100 or 255 levels of invading pixly monsters. Not sure if I have seen it in any new (big) games.

    "The Right to Instructions." - I disagree about the "bad games, peri

    • "The Right to a Swift Death." - Exile (old 2D game) didn't kill off the player if things were hopeless.

      In Exile II, a primary objective is to take out a mass teleportation device. However:

      - Once you start it's destruction, a timed sequence activates.
      - You have to acquire a quest item. If you don't, consider your party whacked by a tactical nuke. (But at least you take out the Empire with you.)
      - You have to learn how to use the quest item. If you don't, see previous point.
      - The quest item, and informati

  • Backups and Internet Blackmail (Score:4, Insightful)

    by thirty2bit ( 685528 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @09:37PM (#13423761)
    Don't forget:
    1. the right to make a backup of your disc.
    2. install and play your game without having to reinstall bare Windows to do so (Starforce: hostile anti-user copy protection and Punkbuster, which currently hates GetRight of all things. Both quickly pronounce users as guilty of hacking without a trial)
    3. install and play your game without needing ANY kind of internet connection whatsoever. Half Life 2 and the (currently vaporware) Prey will never touch my systems because of that.
  • I think it's highly insensitive to pander to the few female gamers and ignore the masses of males that play most games.

    Have we gone completely Politically-Correct Banana's here? If I were a "she" gamer, I would take offense to all these 'sensitive' game reviews/etc. that act like female gamers are the norm.

    Let's get fscking real people. We aren't idiots, and women can see through the pandering you dolts make when you try to make statements to the effect that "She" is the stereotypical gamer.
    • The author alternating between using 'she' and 'he'. I think it was nice that he (and no, I'm not assuming a gender; I clicked on author's bio to find out) noticed that women do play games. *cue whining that 'he' is a gender neutral pronoun* Tell me all you want that 'he' is gender-neutral, but if you do, please explain why 'she' can't be used as gender-neutral as well. If I complained about every article that that only used 'he' for gender-neutral, well, first of all I'ld have that would probably take

    • Re:What's this 'She' crap? (Score:4, Informative)

      by UserChrisCanter4 ( 464072 ) * on Sunday August 28, 2005 @11:21PM (#13424255)
      It's possible that the author simply hasn't sat in a writing class in a few years. About 8 to 10 years ago, the MLA standard for a personal pronoun that referred to an indefinite person was "she." The MLA created this situation to rectify what was seen as the discriminatory use of "he" for years, and most style handbooks advised alternating between "he" and "she" when writing a lengthy discourse involving indefinite subjects.

      I can remember being taught in English classes that "she" was the correct way to approach a situation such as this Bill of Rights.

      Of course, after only a few years, it dawned on the members of the MLA that "she" was equally discriminating. Thus, the correct approach is now "he or she" in situations such as this, though it is very common for writers to erroneously use "they."
      • "they" is not erroneous. it has been in use for a long time but early last century, it no longer was part of the norm.

        "they" actually makes a lot more sense reading and writing to me than to use the words "he" or "she" unless speaking about a particular person's gender.

        "they" live(s).

  • Games that might have inspired the bill... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dbhankins ( 688931 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @10:24PM (#13423962)
    1. Right to Play
      Final Fantasy X

    2. Right to Win
      Not sure on this one, unless he means arcade-style games that don't have an end. Perhaps he's referring to games which have a bug that prevents finishing, none of which I've had the misfortune to encounter yet.

    3. Right to instructions
      Mortal Kombat, Tekken, and other fighting games that make you figure out the combos by trial and error.

    4. Right to Feedback
      Bushido Blade

    5. Right to Motivation
      Sim City, Populous

    6. Right to Make Decisions
      Not sure, unless he means rhythm games like Parappa the Rapper or Space Channel Five

    7. The Right to a Swift Death
      Sierra's Quest games (especially Space Quest) and any number of old adventure games.

    8. The Right to Control Cut-Scenes
      Final Fantasy X

    9. The Right to Quit, Pause, Save and Resume the Game
      Final Fantasy games, Tomb Raider games, and lots of other console titles. Not to mention a horde of games based entirely on checkpoints. These are why at least one PS1 emulator comes with a "save state" function.

    10. The Right to Choose Not to Save the Game
      Checkpoint-only games like Killzone

    11. The Right to Reconfigure the Input Device
      Lots and lots of console games. Final Fantasy Tactics comes to mind. Non-console, X-Wing comes to mind.

    12. The Right Not To Be Insulted
      Never encountered this, myself.

    • There were only a few places in the entire Space Quest series where you could end up in an 'unwinnable' situtation, and those were not intentional. There is one game where you can even 'try again' when you die.

      The sole exception, as far as I know, was Space Quest 2, where in the first room you needed to pick up something that you needed near the end of the game, and that was deliberate, those bastards.

      And if you got attacked by the alien you had an alien burst out of your chest later on, but I laugh at pe

    • Right to Win Not sure on this one, unless he means arcade-style games that don't have an end. Perhaps he's referring to games which have a bug that prevents finishing, none of which I've had the misfortune to encounter yet.

      I actually have played such a game that was reasonably recent, called Sanity: Aiken's Artifact. Rather than use pre-rendered cinematics, all interactions were done in-engine. It was probably a 15 or 20 hour game that I got through and beat the final boss. At this point, there was to
    • 2. Right to Win
      Not sure on this one, unless he means arcade-style games that don't have an end. Perhaps he's referring to games which have a bug that prevents finishing, none of which I've had the misfortune to encounter yet.

      The most famous "bug that prevents finishing" is in Impossible Mission for the 7800, and I hear Slave Zero is unwinnable without cheating, but it's such a rare occurence I think it would have been better to write about bugs in games generally.

      12. The Right Not To Be Insulted
      Never

    • 1. Agreed, tho some people like the genre of interactive movies.

      2. Seems like bugs only.

      3. Most fighting games from the latest era come with the full move list built in the game. Examples include Guilty Gear and Soul Calibur.

      4. Isn't bushido blade a 1v1 fighting game? afaik, when you hit someone, you do see them go limp, so that's a sort of feedback.

      5. For the games in your examples, the motivation is generally "the goal the player assigns themselves". The article refered more to "go find the amulet! no you
    • The Right Not To Be Insulted

      Never encountered this, myself.

      Early Star Wars RTS from 1995 or so ... go go gadget google search [mobygames.com] ... Star Wars: Rebellion. Part of the game was attempting to win over planets using, for example, the Emperor to suck up to the planetary leaders. If that failed (he succeeded if he rolled a 20, 19 if he hitched his robe up), he would say "Fuck you, loser" or something like that.

      Maybe I'm oversensitive, but it really turned me off ...
    • See, what annoyed me the most about FFX wasn't the quantity of cut-scenes as such, but the frequency with which they interrupted me for one.

      Now I can understand that FF games are also a tech demo for Square's game engines, in much the same way Id's games are tech demos for Id's 3D engines. So Square presumably wanted to show off what they can do with their character's animations.

      But here's the major difference: Id's games are quite enjoyable as FPS games go anyway. FFX for me was just an annoying turn-off a

  • Maxis (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RealityMogul ( 663835 ) on Sunday August 28, 2005 @11:05PM (#13424173)
    Here's my bitch list... err, gamers bill of rights I mean:

    Physics: If you are going to try to make a realistic combat simulation game, make sure that those nicely detailed 50 ton tanks don't come to a dead stop when you run into a wooden crate! (Battlefield 2)

    Keyboard Controls: If you are going to make a racing game that allows keyboard controls, make sure the controls are usable on more than the 100hp car you start out with. Nothing sucks quite as much as spinning out on every little turn. This one is for Juiced. NFSU2 got this right.

    Splash Screens: If you want me to know that X, Y, and Z all made parts of the game, give me a way to skip past them! I don't want to sit through 30 seconds of mandatory splash screens each time the game loads. This is really sickening when the game has a problem and keeps crashing. I didn't spend a ton of money on a PC that can load stuff damn near instantly just to be delayed for marketing purposes. At least make the video files easy to find so I can delete them.

  • the right of players to be able to start the freaking game right away without seeing your damn dirty logos and advertising (the way it's meant to be skipped).

    what moron thought it would be good to have company logos, production house logos, nvidia logos, EA sports challenge all that's not annoying, that take 30 seconds longer to get to the main menu without being able to skip it. not only that, why the hell should we have to sit through it more than once?

    if a player pays for the game, the advertising has to
    • It's more annoying when you can skip the dev's logo but can't skip the distributer logo. Meaning the original company got it right, but then the distributers slapped on their own unskippable logo.

      Example is FF7 for PC. You can skip the Square logo, but can't skip the Eidos logo before it (you can prematurely skip it tho).
    • Picture this: so yesterday I re-install Planetside and its Core Combat expansion pack. And, naturally, spend almost two hours after that downloading patches. But I figure, wth, that's pretty much normal and expected for a MMO these days.

      And what am I treated to? Some _long_ advertising movies I can't even skip. The first for some other expansion pack, the second for the Battleframes (think: mechs) that were introduced some time later.

      Yep, some idiot at Sony's marketting dept decided that obviously "gamer" m

  • Instructions (Score:3, Interesting)

    by HunterZ ( 20035 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @11:37AM (#13427789) Journal
    I think this article is silly but brings up a few interesting points. I do disagree with the "Right to Instructions" however. I think too many games these days have annoying hand-holding tutorials that the player is forced to endure for up to the first couple of hours of the game. Fable is a good recent example of this.

    I really think that with some forethought, many games could be designed to allow the player to learn how to play the game without handholding. An obvious example is to simply make things easier on the player at first - avoiding allowing opportunities for any major player decisions or actions early in the game that can severely stunt or otherwise negatively affect the player's progression later on. I remember playing Arcanum and not being able to leave the first town because I hadn't concentrated on any one skillset enough to get past the goons guarding the exit - I'd have had to start the whole game over and lose a couple hours of gameplay.

    I can live with optional tutorials, but it's my opinion that they're still indicative of a lack of good game design. I think the best approach is to include a manual and just make the game a little more forgiving in the beginning without doing any overt handholding. Draw the player into the world instead of destroying the immersion with silly tutorials.

  • I like 10 Commandments better (Score:3, Funny)

    by rAiNsT0rm ( 877553 ) on Monday August 29, 2005 @04:47PM (#13430480) Homepage
    1.) Thou shalt not suck
    2.) Thou shalt not covet another game/genre unless you do something new or different.
    3.) Thou shalt not delay your release by more than 3 months.
    4.) Thou shalt not glorify "smackin' a hoe," "clocking a grip," or "Bustin a nut."
    5.) Thou shalt honor good game design over flashy graphics.
    6.) Thou shalt not involve Mary Kate and Ashley, Britney Spears, or any other pre-teen/teen manufactured idol/heart throb.
    7.) Thou shalt not overhype your creation only to produce a shiny turd.
    8.) Thou shalt put effort into mini-games/extras or just leave them out.
    9.) Thou shalt end your game with some sort of closeure other than just the names of the artistic director.
    10.) Thou shalt not produce endless sequels in which you add a "quirky" sidekick.

  • My Right (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pudge ( 3605 ) * <slashdot.pudge@net> on Monday August 29, 2005 @05:31PM (#13430884) Homepage Journal
    I have the right not to be subjected to female third-person pronouns when the antecedent is of indeterminant gender.

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