quote: Original post by sara_qq
what do you think of a game where no matter what you do, something happens. like you are attacked or someone is kidnapped at some point.

is it always frustrating or correct if done properly?

I always find this frustrating, no matter how well it is done. I end up questioning why I''m playing the game if I can''t make an impact. This also makes me less interested in replaying the game, because I know that no matter what I do, I''ll get the same result.

Of course, there are varying degrees of this effect in different games. The stronger it is, the more frustrating it is for me.



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Just waiting for the mothership...

Personally, I''m content with the Final Fantasy stories being totally linear because they''re just that good. Those games have some deep plots. But so far, I have yet to see a game which you describe. SaGa Frontier was supposed to be THE non-linear game which still had a plot. But I was expecting something different. Every character still basically played like this: character starts out with a little plot background. Then you gain control of the character and you go recruit people and go on the same old side quests that you did with the last character, then, after hours of leveling up, you go fight the boss and that''s the end. There just wasn''t enough plot most of the times. I think what we need to find is a balance in linearity (is that a word?). The character should not just do whatever he wants and occaisionally move along in the story because the plot becomes unimportant. At the same time, the character should not be pushed along through the story without any control because then all you have is a graphical novel. And it''s gonna be hard to find this midpoint between the two extremes because up to now, we subconciously think about these adventure types of games as "stories" although we don''t like to admit it.

But I think I''m steering from the subject. I don''t know if the average gamer really wants to determine the story for himself. Some people just wanna play a "graphical novel" as I called it above. But maybe not. I don''t know. I''m tired. Good night.

IMHO, it is alright to have something that is going to happen no matter what, but only if the player can visibly affect it.

IE If the kingdom wants to go to war, the player could influence something like the army''s morale, or who is allied with the country, or who is an enemy, or actually fight and kill some famous notable of the other side. Kind of a climactic event

In Zelda64 the princess is always kidnapped, if she isnt there is no point in the game. These are classic games and i now that the real solution would be what was talked in the narrative interpolation thread but today it is ok to do it sometimes.

btw, has anybody used the erasmatron from Chris Crawford? I have tried several times with an emulator because it is mac only, but it doesnt run.

I mean, he has been developing this storywolrd technology for 10 years so he must know a little bit more than anybody else.

(c) 1982 Sinclair Research Ltd, 0:1

As was already addressed, there has to be a balance between linearity and openendedness. If the game is too linear, the player will feel that he has no choices at all. You might as well just do the entire story as the intro animation clip... that way, the player can get popcorn and a Mt. Dew rather than pretending that he's involved.

There is a frustration level that may be encountered, however, when the player FEELS like he has control and yet continually is faced by events which may run counter-intuitive to his actions. Now, something like the princess getting kidnapped, or your government going to war are, indeed, things which are generally beyond your control and the player won't expect that to be true. There may be other, smaller, events that the player may THINK he has influence over... and you don't allow him to exercise that influence. The brings on a rather fatalistic attitude if you aren't careful.

There is a current feature on Gamasutra regarding The Psychology of Choice that covers some of the aspects of player morale and risk/reward. It's not directly related to what we are discussing here, but some of the concepts map over.

Dave Mark
Intrinsic Algorithm Development
"Reducing the world to mathematical equations!"

Edited by - InnocuousFox on March 2, 2002 8:14:15 AM