Briareos H on 18/3/2012 at 10:35

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@Yakoob: do you have anything besides your hypothetical example to illustrate what you describe as bad design? You originally made up the 80% value as a counterpoint to LittleFlower's relief that some game developers understand the need for optional content in immersive games. I don't see a lot of intellectual honesty in inventing a fictional game where those exclusive 20% consist of 3-5 hours of linear gameplay, because no one ever did that. The actual optional content being discussed here is hidden conversations, slight differences in story arcs over the course of the game, secret rooms, different endings, secret objectives, etc.

Thief has bad design because if you play through the whole game on the easiest difficulty level, you miss several additional objectives?

The bad endings in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. SoC depend on how much of the game currency you own, how many points you gained (even worse, those points are not exposed to the player so at first you never know if you'll be getting a particular ending) and how you approached the main factions' quests. Additionaly, getting a bad ending cuts off a small but significant portion of gameplay and story that's supposed to take place afterwards. According to your vision, this is definitely bad design. Well guess what, they were great.

The game closest to your idea of bad design I can think of is The Witcher 2. The narrative in The Witcher 2 unfolds radically differently if you choose to side with one faction leader or the other. There is a hefty amount of mutually exclusive content between the two playthroughs, even though it doesn't change much for the end game. I can't think of anyone with more than two neurons that complained about having game content changed according to their choices. Maybe you did, I don't remember.

If I understand you correctly, the mere knowledge that some content that was created and incorporated into the game wasn't accessible in your playthrough automatically diminishes the value of what you played. To me it is not the case, dare I say it enhances my experience even if put off replaying the game to see the missing content until months or years. And please don't bring the "unnecessary development time better spent polishing" argument to the table, as we're talking core game concepts and not practical application.



I think the secret ending to Invisible War wasn't discovered until some time after release, but now I can't find any way to prove it.
Kolya's example is also excellent. For a long time there was no Blade Runner wiki and all walkthroughs found online were incomplete with regards to endings. Finding a new one after doing things just a bit differently felt incredible. I love that game.

Ostriig on 18/3/2012 at 12:32

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Actually, if I can go off here slightly, is that even a factor, do we have to replay to see what we've missed in the end? Isn't this alternative content even more valuable when you are pointedly incentivised not to go back and see what you've "missed?"

For instance, back before Heavy Rain was about to launch David Cage at one point expressed his desire that, ideally, each player only go through the game once and accept their one-time experience as such, instead of going back and trying to "retcon" their playthrough. I appreciate what he's saying here, and I think it's an interesting perspective in a somewhat Diablo II Hardcore sort of way, but I have to confess that the main reason I'm not going back to play it is that I mostly got the resolution that I was rooting for to that story. If I'd gotten an ending that I was seriously unhappy with I'd probably be going against his artistic vision for experiencing Quantic Dream's work.

An even better example, however, is the Witcher 2 you mentioned. Because even as I know that there's an entirely different Chapter Two out there waiting for me and as a gamer I want to see that content, as a Witcher 2 player I'm reluctant to go through with it, as I find some of the associated characters and the choices I'd have to make to be very much detestable. I find the characters and the situations involved to be polarizing and engaging enough that I'm actually tempted to skip on seeing part of the game. And I think that's marvellous. And that it lends a lot more weight to the choices I made that led me through the other path in Chapter Two.

Kolya on 18/3/2012 at 15:51

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I know it's easy to miss, but the game actually has a narrative, confused and unresolved as it may be.

Now please punch yourself in the face for saying "storyfag". Trust me you'll feel much better. Your dignity as a human person restored and all.

faetal on 18/3/2012 at 16:34

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Seeing as how a signification amount of gamers will re-play a game they enjoyed, divergent content can at the very least be viewed as a mechanism to introduce variety into that.

Fafhrd on 19/3/2012 at 01:09

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This. Allowing the player to experience everything in the game results in either the player having no choices, or choices that don't mean anything in the context of the narrative. Both of which constitute worse design than in Yakoob's hypothetical game.

The question is: Was the story you played complete in and of itself? Did the journey you took the player character on have a proper beginning, middle, and end, and did you derive satisfaction out of it? If you answered yes to one or both of those questions, then quit your bitching.