First of let me paint a picture for you …. “You are dungeon crawling down to a dragon to retrieve an item from its horde. You get there, you group is primed to jump the dragon, hamstring it, whilst you plunge you sword of dragon slaying into the beats heart. The dragon notices your group, it turns to face you and takes a deep breath ….” Now in most situations you would expect the dragon to unleash its fiery breath at you and promptly tear the nearest wizard a new one. However in the situation it turns towards the group and *puts story on pause* … what am I talking about, well let me carry on with the story. “The dragon has just drawn his breath and instead of cooking you he utters the word “ah i see you have arrived to retake the treasure of biggus buttikus, I will give you the treasure if you can beat me beat me at a game of chess ” You utter of vent “What the hell is this “ … i would guess this situation would leave you and your grp scratching your asses and wondering what ever happend to game emmersion …
Following where I’m going with this ? well if not, what I’m trying to say (probably not that well) is the inappropriate use of puzzles, traps or switches, attunements etc in an mmo that can really lead to breaking the players enjoyment and immersion in the game. Let me tell you nothing annoys me more when I see this in a game, and its not exclusive to mmos either.
Is it a case of bad quest design ?, the designer of the encounter running out of ideas ? or is it that they need to have 1000 quets in game before release and any anything is better than nothing. Who knows, all I know is that it spoils my game play and I presume others as well. I put this down to bad game design and in the era of polish and big dollar game budgets should not be happening.
I’m playing a herioc toon and I dont want to be playing wheel of fortune or university challenge … If you must use these type of game fills be a little more cirumspec and make it immersive and not a Wth situation ….
Any one else get annoyed with these situations or is it just me ….
Good point. I bet that sort of thing is usually the result of a designer trying to do something different without first asking if difference is good.
I don’t know how to play chess so I’d be doomed!! I do like puzzles and mysteries in a game, but only if they are done well and fit into the overall context of the world and storyline. The hypothetical you describe would definitely not be good, and I’m sure would leave us all going, “huh?”
I think it would be a neat change to get in a situation like that from time to time, although chess in particular would work better on a solo situation rather than with a group.
Better yet, if this was an alternate path to the fighting and you could choose which way to go I think it would be neat.
What is really inappropriate use of non-combat options? Maybe it is something I have missed, but I cannot recall seeing things that much that I considered it a problem.
I think it’s because designers are desperate to include at least some variation in the quests, and start to run out of ideas as to how to carry it off…