qornea
Much write, very gaming
5 Things game developers won’t stop doing (That everyone hates)
Not everyone learns from their mistakes
Not everyone learns from their mistakes
5 Things game developers won’t stop doing (Column)
- Thread starter qornea
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OmegaFenix
The Legendary Troll Hunter
The Boring quest ones made me lol.
I had a moment over the weekend trying to come up with challenging puzzles for the Maze game example in my course work. Coming up with a seemingly complex puzzle sounded easy until you start and end up with a puzzle than needs several new mechanics to solve. Having to draw the line somewhere you end up using what you have instead of adding more and more resources to the game, each resource in turn needs to be turned into a mechanic that makes sense.
While I agree there is a distinct lack of imagination in most WoW or other MMO quest lines (even some SP RPGs) it think it has become a question of Quantity over quality. Make a dozen highly original, detailed quests which the player blazes through in 10 - 20 hours (Mass Effect & Dragon Age Origins 1 jumps to mind) or push in a few hundred cookie cutter ones that will occupy the player for 100 hours. Considering how quickly gamer begin to complain when a game doesn't mean their expected play time I kind see why they do it.
Boring/Copy Pasted Enemies I do hate though and often wonder why they don't employ a decent random character generator just to get some flavour in. However I suppose its more an issue with the ability of the hardware than anything else.
I had a moment over the weekend trying to come up with challenging puzzles for the Maze game example in my course work. Coming up with a seemingly complex puzzle sounded easy until you start and end up with a puzzle than needs several new mechanics to solve. Having to draw the line somewhere you end up using what you have instead of adding more and more resources to the game, each resource in turn needs to be turned into a mechanic that makes sense.
While I agree there is a distinct lack of imagination in most WoW or other MMO quest lines (even some SP RPGs) it think it has become a question of Quantity over quality. Make a dozen highly original, detailed quests which the player blazes through in 10 - 20 hours (Mass Effect & Dragon Age Origins 1 jumps to mind) or push in a few hundred cookie cutter ones that will occupy the player for 100 hours. Considering how quickly gamer begin to complain when a game doesn't mean their expected play time I kind see why they do it.
Boring/Copy Pasted Enemies I do hate though and often wonder why they don't employ a decent random character generator just to get some flavour in. However I suppose its more an issue with the ability of the hardware than anything else.
Lupus
New member
Unskippable cutscenes are why I stopped playing a few games, one of them being Call of Duty 3 that was so horribly broken you'd die so much you'd see some cutscenes 40 times. You also had to watch the cutscene every time you put the game in and continued to play. Star Trek Shattered universe did the same thing. Oh and finally someone agrees with me on WoW, really I think in the time it took me to get to level 11 I must've put a lot of creatures on the endangered species list.
Lupus
New member
Escourt missions... I HATE escourt missions and the one that really sticks in my head is that stupid robochickenhomingbot thing in Tanaris. The flippen thing just kept on running off and getting whacked by hyenas.
Escort missions generally do suck, unless it's Ico
ViperGTI
New member
Awesome article... very funny. +1 on all points made.
I always wanted to play WoW someday until I bought Age of Conan a couple of years back. First time I was introduced to a MMORPG. I was pretty disgusted because of the money that I wasted to buy the game in the first place and the time I had wasted completing those dumbass quests. Have never been tempted to play a MMORPG since except for SWTOR of which I played the beta.
The unskippable cutscenes annoys the hell out of me and although, I never really thought about it before reading this article, thinking back, it was always the village idiot with the deathwish that needed escorting. Hopefully they improve the AI in the future to give some of these NPCs half a braincell or something.
I always wanted to play WoW someday until I bought Age of Conan a couple of years back. First time I was introduced to a MMORPG. I was pretty disgusted because of the money that I wasted to buy the game in the first place and the time I had wasted completing those dumbass quests. Have never been tempted to play a MMORPG since except for SWTOR of which I played the beta.
The unskippable cutscenes annoys the hell out of me and although, I never really thought about it before reading this article, thinking back, it was always the village idiot with the deathwish that needed escorting. Hopefully they improve the AI in the future to give some of these NPCs half a braincell or something.
Maplassie
AK47 Pew Pew
Unskippable cutscenes, specially in buggy games where the game would bomb out just after or during the cutscene forcing you to watch it again.
Escort missions.
Both those things should die in a fire. In a fire filled with ever looping scatman music videos and a Justin Bieber dance routines.
Escort missions.
Both those things should die in a fire. In a fire filled with ever looping scatman music videos and a Justin Bieber dance routines.
ViperGTI
New member
I just thought of another thing that is annoying as hell.
Checkpoints. Give us a normal Save & Load game functions with x number of slots. Duke Nukem Forever and Alone in the Dark had this checkpoint nonsense without the ability to save / load normally as well as a bunch of other games, but those 2 jumps to mind. I think Bulletstorm was like that as well, but can't remember now. An autosave feature is very welcome, but don't force the "story-mode" where you can only continue from the last checkpoint and if you start a new game or load an earlier save, all your progress is lost.
I think Mass Effect has one of the best save game mechanics. It is simple, saves and loads at the position where you saved the game and the Quick Save function overwrites the previous quick save each time and if you want to do a save at an important position in your playthrough, you just do it via the menu.
Checkpoints. Give us a normal Save & Load game functions with x number of slots. Duke Nukem Forever and Alone in the Dark had this checkpoint nonsense without the ability to save / load normally as well as a bunch of other games, but those 2 jumps to mind. I think Bulletstorm was like that as well, but can't remember now. An autosave feature is very welcome, but don't force the "story-mode" where you can only continue from the last checkpoint and if you start a new game or load an earlier save, all your progress is lost.
I think Mass Effect has one of the best save game mechanics. It is simple, saves and loads at the position where you saved the game and the Quick Save function overwrites the previous quick save each time and if you want to do a save at an important position in your playthrough, you just do it via the menu.
Graal
New member
I honestly don't know why we don't have a pause function for cutscenes in the 21st century. A few games have it, but the vast majority insist that if you start you have to finish watching it.