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Original post by Wavinator Imagine that you're exploring space and decide to head out into the icy gulf between stars. The game doesn't stop you, but after awhile you're bored, so you teleport home. Once back in civilized space, you attend to the various death threats, revolutions, save the universe missions and occassional marriage proposals that have made life interesting... Who's responsible for the player being bored, the game or the player?

In this example, the player. The game doesn't force the player to head out in the void, nor does it prevent the player from returning. So it would be a shame to claim that the game is to blame.

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IOW, should a game either A) limit you only to the places where there's action B) let you go into places where there might be nothing of consequence B1) same as above, but always give you a quick way out C) make it so that every place always has action, no matter how contrived that may be Most games adopt A, which is why you get tempting views guarded by knee high barriers you can't jump over. Option C sounds best, but makes world-design arbitrary: For instance, in Freelancer, ships will always spawn that attack you, even if you're going to the corner store for some milk. It gets silly and repetitive after awhile. I would personally favor B1, with the idea that as long as the player can always get to the action, they should be allowed the freedom to discover the game's world at their own pace. This is provided that the player has some way of finding the action space (ie, not searching aimlessly).

I opt for B.

If the game provides the player with some way of knowing where the action is taking place, and the player willfully sails away to somewhere where she knows nothing interesting is going to happen, then it's the player's own fault.

Being a stickler for realism, I also have issues with any mechanism that allows you to travel perhaps hundreds of light years at a click of a button. If there are interstellar teleporters, that would have a huge effect on the reality you are presenting.

On the other hand, if you were going to pretend that the player got back in the normal boring way, and advance time in the game world by howeverr long it would have taken, that's okay.

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Nathan Baum In this example, the player. The game doesn't force the player to head out in the void, nor does it prevent the player from returning. So it would be a shame to claim that the game is to blame.

But to the same extent, it would be the game's fault for not either:
A) Communicating to the player that there's nothing there but boredome, in whichever method you choose.

Or

B) Not making the boring area exciting. If it exists, why should it be boring unless someone, somehow, in the game expresses the fact that the planet is boring, and it ties in with the story / the NPCs to express something?

I wouldn't say being bored really matters though if you make it up. I would just say it's a waste of space and time if you don't make it up to the player.