Eh, that sounds a little more obsessive than being a mere diamond...

Anyways, my wife has the same sort of gripes with many games. Unfortunately, she likes 'collecting' things, which often is best done in non-linear RPG sort of games [think Final Fantasy, pokemon].

She handles the problem by finding a nice thorough walkthrough and following it to a T. No worries about making the wrong choice, and character customization choices quickly become immaterial when you find all the secret stuff.

I love the concept of open-ended games, but dislike many implementations of the concept. I think my biggest gripe is a sense of a hard-coded set of content. For example, there are n unique items in the game, and it is remotely feasible to actually obtain all of them. Or when a game has a percent-complete statistic. It exacerbates the feeling that you're missing something. When I think of implementing the open-ended concept, I try to think of making the underlying architecture legitimately open-ended, rather than just really large but ultimately finite. But even to the extent that I'd have to make it large-but-finite, I'd try to hide that fact, try to make it feel infinite. Unique items, specific quests, percent-complete statistics, and such like that work to undo that infinite feeling and have always irked me, at least in the back of my mind.

I've always been interested (though not active) with demoscene-style programs, and such. Procedural techniques for generating content has great potential. The problem is that it's really difficult to turn procedural content into an exciting world and a well balanced and fun game. Will Wright is trying to do with with Spore, but it's still up in the air how well it'll work; it's a rather ambitious project.

I'm curious - to the OP, how do you feel about games like the Metroid series (in particular, Super Metroid) or the more recent Castlevania games? They're pseudo-linear, since you're typically constrained to a subset of the available world by the abilities you have; however, sufficiently clever gameplay lets you break sequence, making the game more nonlinear. Ultimately you'll end up getting all or most of the powerups (you aren't forced to leave things behind and it doesn't take long to travel backwards through the gameworld), but the path you take to the endgame can vary.

I think there's a distinction to be made here between "destructive" and "nondestructive" nonlinearity. In the former, decisions you make early on can prevent you from doing everything a game has to offer, sometimes significantly so. In the latter, you can always access everything in the game, and as a general rule you will access everything eventually, but it's your choice what order to do things in.

Quote:

Original post by Kevinator Sure, I'll elaborate on Doom 3. With me, it's all about my nerves. After a session of play, am I relaxed or am I anxious? With Doom 3, I am definitely anxious. Not because it makes me scared, but because it grates my nerves to play it, literally. I walk into a room, and I know the baddies are going to teleport in behind me or plow througha wall somewhere, and it's not really fun, it just becomes more of a chore. Combine the chore of hunting for monsters in this way with being lost a lot and not being able to see very well, and I just feel drained after a session of playing DOOM3. All the games on my bottom list leave me feeling refreshed or energized or get my imagination going. I don't really consider DOOM3 very linear. At least in my definition of linear, you don't get lost. Laugh at me if you want, but I managed to lose my way quite often in DOOM3.

It's like riding a roller coaster. Are you relaxed or are you scared? But you still had fun. It's the same as Doom. It's a thrill

About what you said about Morrow Wind, that is just something that happens when a game become too balanced. Simply because what drives a player to play a game is to constantly seeking out ways to get pass obsicles, and if there are easy ways, they'll find it and exploit it. In other words...what drives players to play the game is to seek out that unbalance in game and exploit it. And when a game do become perfect or near perfect balance, there are no more seeking to do, at which the player looses interest and stop playing.

you could have just said:

"i dont like mmorpgs, strategy games, and things that scare or confuse me"

What about the hybrid position, that one could prefer games that allow customization, but only when it is things that really matter. I was sad to notice that starcraft was on your list of games. The nonlinearliness of Starcraft means that at any moment you could be hosed because you didn't defend against the right kind of attack. Zerglings are bad against scouts... :-P

Worms Armageddon was great because of the amount of customization that could be done. The game was turn based, which was slightly linearized version of a nonlinear game. The customization ended with things that dramatically affected gameplay. I laughed my ass off when my Age of Empires III playing friends finally hacked the XML file because they were tired of earning little power cards from the game. Customization that allows a game to become many things that are generally supported by its engine is good customization. Customization that turns the game into a big dollhouse or that open ended nothingness is rather boring. Hence, GTA was lost on me. I just never could give a crap about how many cars I collected or have fun running around destroying shit.

i only hate non-linearity to a certain extent. for an example, if a bad decision can lead to a game over or a dead end after a few hours, i usually drop the game forever unless it's a very fun game.

About non-linearity, it's a matter of how the game displays it to you.
In Morrowind you're just thrown into a place with no information about the world and what you can be. If I wanted to be a mage and there was a big sign that puts "Mages go there" I wouldn't mind the "Druids go over there" sign that points in the opposite direction.
My example is abit bold, but the point is that since you can't predict what one or the other option's output will be, you feel like you're leaving something behind. If you could predict the outcomes you'd know the difference and therefore the decision would be easier and leaving something behind would be easier too.

MMORPG's are a different thing because they don't really have a plot going on, so instead of being open-ended games they really are neverending open worlds.

In any of the cases, a solution is to make up your mind of what you want to get from the game and be sure of your decisions.


On another point of view, a problem with leaving things behind is that you get flashes of what they are (be in walkthroughs, websites, friends) so you never really leave them behind

Quote:

Original post by Kevinator Here's a list of games that grated on my nerves too much and I NEVER finished them: -Morrowind -Many MMORPGs (put lots and lots of time into them, but perpetually low level) -Black and White -Starcraft -Age of Empires -Descent 1, 2, 3 -Soldier of Fortune 2 -Jedi Knight -Diablo II -Thief 2 and 3 -Rome: Total War -Betrayal at Krondor -Doom 3 -Imperium Galactica 2 -Every Zelda game ever made -Every GTA game ever made -KotOR (and I'm a star wars nut!) -SWG (and I'm a star wars nut!) -Sandbox Games that you can't really win, such as the Sims, Sim City, BattleField type games -Baldur's Gate II And here's a list of games that were very engaging and I couldn't put them down (A lot of them I would play all in one sitting), these one's just 'clicked': -Half Life 2 (Just excellent) -Serious Sam, Serious Sam: Second Encounter, Serious Sam 2 -TIE Fighter -Goldeneye 007 -Descent: Freespace -Jedi Outcast -Dark Forces -Call Of Duty -The original Mario -Rebel Assault -Republic Commando -Surprisingly, Counterstrike (well I sink time into it anyway) -Final Fantasy 7 (I didn't know what magicka was and I beat the game at level 45ish) -Final Fantasy Mystic quest ^some linear RPGs I just gobbled up As you can see, there is a fair mix of genres on each side... Any thoughts?

All I can see is that you are not a strategy kind of guy. And that's okay.

I could play and finish any of the games you listed there.

Really! If you like linear games, you're really not getting your money worth of the game! Considering spending $50 on buying Prince of Persia: T2T, all you'll get is 10 hours of gameplay even in hard mode.

Non-linear games can really extend that border, to give a game more than a month of gameplay.

Just think about it. How many hours have you spent on playing a linear game, and compare it with the hours that you spent on playing a non-linear game.