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Original post by Iron Chef Carnage From Iron Chef's first post in this thread I think that a world in which every feature and location can be categorized as "experience farm" or "marketplace" has a sense of artificiality. This dark forest idea could be a big step toward more impressive worlds in video games. ... Second Post [/b[ Every time you walk around the forest you're bowing to that superior force. Psychologically, that gets RPG'ers collective goat. Once I've killed Diablo, and beaten Kefka, and destroyed the One Ring, players reason, I should be able to stare down any monster in the game. What god might live in those woods that I can't stab to death with by +7 PUSD? Strange to think that a player who objects when dragon's breath does more than 10% damage to them will accept a death-by-magma without batting an eye. At least in Metroid it took a few seconds to melt. The point is that an inaccessible forest can't be inaccessible because there are NPCs in there that can beat you. If you make a boundary look like a fight, it's "cheap".

The first post highlights the idea that I'd like to see put into games, ie. the psychological aspect of there is something big bad and unbeatable. The problem is that this isn't going to sit very easily with many players, they will bang their head against a wall until it cracks (and in this case it would be the head that cracks first).

What I'd like to see is a way of implementing this idea of magic and mystery in a way that doesn't frustrate the player in a irritating way. So maybe the question has nothing to do with -geographical boundaries in games. But a way of implementing the the "known unknown".


Side note 1. the point about winning by experience points mainly refers to RPGs where you can infinitely level up (unlike games with a smaller range of stats). If this were a stealth-type game such as Siren then it would be a different question. But players would still keep trying to beat the system every time they thought of a new approach.

Make the forest have a posion plauge so when your characters go in there they are slowly losing hitpoints. Similar to in Zelda Orcaina of Time, if you went into the valcano without the 'fire suit' you would burniate.

You could make the Dark Forest the one place in the entire game where the player can't save. Nothing like complete and total loss to dissuade you from going where you shouldn't.

You know, you could have the plot diverge from the haunted forest in such a way that it leaves the haunted forest's mystery open-ended, and then resolve it later perhaps, or use it as quest to finish a long way down the road.

For instance, lets say that all the NPCs talk about the evil forest and the phantom spirits. When the player goes in, he runs into a travelling group of gypsies that take him hostage. When he breaks free, he's in another country. Upon return, you can find that the town has a local hero that defeated the phantoms of the forest. It at least leaves the mystery for that period while the player has been on other plot threads. Return to the forest to find it cleared of phantoms, but occasionally have a ghost poke in and out, just to make it seem unresolved.

It could work.

I think what you are trying to do, whilst honorable, cannot be done within the existing gamer's mentality...
simply put, we have created, for better or worse, a large number of cliches and conventions in games. And to break them, you will need to educate your players, throughout your game, and possibly the manual, or suffer their wrath for frustrating them. (btw, I take it, here, that you are thinking of a cRPG)

What you don't really explain is why you want those woods. I mean, what is their point, their role in the game?
Are they, say, a final level that you can access from the very beginning of the game, but that you don't want the player to explore until they have reached the end of the game ?
Are they just a barrier that you simply don't want them to explore, whilst giving the place a reputation ?

In the second case, the reputation could be derived from NPC referring to the place. Now, the problem that you have, is that if you do that, the player will expect the place to be a level, possibly locked or something, but still, they'll expect something to be there. As I pointed out earlier, you can't use the conventions (every bloody NPC you meet in the area, pointing out how nobody ever comes back from the woods) and then expect the player to just give up and not go there... there is red herring, and then there is just plain taking the piss, if you know what I mean.

For the first case, it's pretty simple, you do like the Small Cave in ADOM.
Make the enemies' strength be proportional to the players.
Most newbies to ADOM, when first entering this cave, are surprised when after getting a few level, their hero gets splattered by a simple rat. But once the veterans explain to them how things are, they just accept it and take the cave for what it is, a training ground for leveling up quickly, but which will punish the greedy (the increase in difficulty is not linear, it's geometric).
Like I said before, if you make it clear that your game doesn't follow the conventions, then players will either accept your rules and play by them, or they'll go play something else.

Like in ADOM, you could have absolutely no reason why powerful monsters would inhabit the forest, and why their power just seem to increase always faster than yours, no matter what you try. But what really matters is that the rest of the game follows the same "tone". ADOM is a roguelike, players expect to meet enemies in the most unlikely places, because it's not about realism and consitency, it's about hack and slash...
but you can't set a tone of bleakness and realism to your game, and then have the "Dark Woods of Unbeatable Ghosts Spawning Area".

Like I said, you set your rules, you stick with them, and to heck with the conventions ! [razz]
That's this attitude that make a great game what it is, IMHO

So maybe it would be better to implement this in a different way, instead of having a 'dark wood', what about having a roaming personified God / Big-Brother type computer that deals justice on people that contravene its law? Like the creatures of Black & White - meet the otherworldly menace of Cthulu?

Hmm.. you could try putting the "Tyrant" from the resident evil series in. The big lug was invincible and would track the player into different area's/maps, but the player could "put him down" with alot of artillery, cept he would just get back up after a few moments and come back after the player. If he got stronger each time, THAT would be a reason to get the hell out of there. ;D

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Original post by Ketchaval Interesting question? There are dark woods filled with evil spirits and monsters, how do you make the player NOT want to go there?

Tell him there is his mother-in-law, doing her own things.

Or tell him there is something really dangerous, and after 100 reload he will stop going there. Be creative.

Then again Crawl has a really nice reason why you don't like to go into the Crypt, a lots of players went into and died anyway. Seems suicidal tendencies are common even in games without reload. (It deleted saves after player was killed.)

If all that fails, say it's protected from entrance by greenpeace, and encircle it with high high voltage fence. It worked for rabits, it might work for player.

tough one. As a gamer, if an NPC told me that there was something in a forest, no matter what, well DAMN i'll head in there!

so the primary rule for having a player skip an area is: make it seem like there's nothing there to be seen.

Then there's the punishment.
In the excellent adventure called The Neverhood there was this place in the world with a tiny drain hole. It had many signs that read "Do not jump in. You will die."

Of course, I jumped in.
And guess what.
I died.

It was the only possible way to die in that game. Total genius. Of course, I saved before doing that, because it was plainly obvious what would happen.

So, combining both:
Have NPCs tell the player ghost stories, whatever, then STRESS that some friend or cousin or whatever (or maybe many different people) went there and found absolutely nothing, but came back very weakened. Then add constant damage as they travel. And warp them back (seamlessly) to the entrance every certain distance. With all that said, I would take the hint after taking some damage and turn back. Nothing to see here, citizen.

Bear in mind that players will hate that forest. If it's your goal to make a place they don't like, and you succeed, your players will be miffed. Even after participating in this conversation, I'd play your game, jump on the community discussion forum, and type, "Hey, what's with the lousy dark forest? I've been running in there and dying for the last three days. I know there has to be some kind of easter egg or treasure, or secret in there. SOmeone tell me how to do it." It would be like that god-awful Megg in Halo. I never even saw it. Lousy invincible Marines.