demagogue on 17/8/2012 at 04:34
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
Is that any different to ye olde craft of toy making? Or bowl turning (who knows what salad will be put in said bowl) or chair making (who will sit and what conversations will they have)...
It's a bloody craft already ;)
Yes, it's absolutelly a craft AND like a game they're playing with or through-the-eyes-of the player. It's both. The experience is carefully crafted AND the player creates his own personal experience (away from the mapper) but that the mapper is imagining as if they were a player in the process of making it itself.
I wasn't saying it's *not* also a craft. We're just talking about players using games as a personal vehicle to transform themselves or whatever. So I was just talking about the mapper's role in that... As far as the finished product goes, the mapper does craft things like the architecture and some scripted events. But the mapper is also putting themselves in the player's mind, to construct a lot of personal experiences they can get through the gameplay, and maybe experiences the mapper didn't directly craft in there by plan -- if they're a clever mapper that knows how to set up situations good for that. A mapper does not actually craft that perfect kill or sneak a player got, but the mapper has to have all these experiences and possibilities in his or her imagination.
I guess to some extent that happens in a book or movie too... The director & actors tailor what they say to an audience, thinking about how the audience will receive it. But at the end of the day, they just spoonfeed what they've made to the audience, and the crafted product is the same. But in a game, the whole point of this thread is, the meaning is not just spoonfed from the mapper to the player, but the player is making their own meaning in it too, and are putting themselves into the character and having it transform themselves as well as the character. So I think part of that is the mapper getting involved in that process, from a distance... It is a lot of crafting for the mapper, but it's this other thing too -- building or imagining freedom for the player.
edit: Ok, if you want it literally, it's a crafted product where the mapper does not craft the entire product but the user does too, like Ikea furniture, but unlike Ikea furniture the "user does too" part is something the mapper has to work with in a very special way, since it will be different and very personal for every player. I guess you could literally say that about crafting a chair too but... to what extent is the personal conversations or rocking styles(?) of sitters, or how the user is going to put peg-A into hole-F, going to change anything the chair maker does to cater to each personal experience, to change the way it "sits" or "rocks" for each individual personally? But a personal gameplay scene for a player, the mapper needs to get "into" his own game as all these different players in a special way. (I mean we're talking about a game where "personally changing ourselves" is possible. More like Deus Ex; not like Minesweeper.) I thought it was a special thing mappers had to get into, in crafting their product, that other crafts don't really in the same way. You need to make a wall as if a player could come at it from any direction in any kind of situation; so you need to be in their head at every step.
Edit2: Fine, maybe even a chair has that. Then I'd just say, who the hell has their life changed rocking in a freaking chair? That's dumb, haha. But people can have very personal experiences in a game. The mapper is not uninvolved in this I think. That's all I'm trying to say. :)
EvaUnit02 on 18/8/2012 at 05:27
More like using games as an excuse to write pseudo-intellectual blog-like threads.
SubJeff on 18/8/2012 at 09:18
Yakoob's fart is more intellectual than anything you've come out with.
jay pettitt on 19/8/2012 at 17:47
Quote Posted by demagogue
Yes, it's absolutelly a craft AND like a game they're playing with or through-the-eyes-of the player. It's both. The experience is carefully crafted AND the player creates his own personal experience (away from the mapper) but that the mapper is imagining as if they were a player in the process of making it itself.
I wasn't saying it's *not* also a craft. We're just talking about players using games as a personal vehicle to transform themselves or whatever. So I was just talking about the mapper's role in that... As far as the finished product goes, the mapper does craft things like the architecture and some scripted events. But the mapper is also putting themselves in the player's mind, to construct a lot of personal experiences they can get through the gameplay, and maybe experiences the mapper didn't directly craft in there by plan -- if they're a clever mapper that knows how to set up situations good for that. A mapper does not actually craft that perfect kill or sneak a player got, but the mapper has to have all these experiences and possibilities in his or her imagination.
I guess to some extent that happens in a book or movie too... The director & actors tailor what they say to an audience, thinking about how the audience will receive it. But at the end of the day, they just spoonfeed what they've made to the audience, and the crafted product is the same. But in a game, the whole point of this thread is, the meaning is not just spoonfed from the mapper to the player, but the player is making their own meaning in it too, and are putting themselves into the character and having it transform themselves as well as the character. So I think part of that is the mapper getting involved in that process, from a distance... It is a lot of crafting for the mapper, but it's this other thing too -- building or imagining freedom for the player.
edit: Ok, if you want it literally, it's a crafted product where the mapper does not craft the entire product but the user does too, like Ikea furniture, but unlike Ikea furniture the "user does too" part is something the mapper has to work with in a very special way, since it will be different and very personal for every player. I guess you could literally say that about crafting a chair too but... to what extent is the personal conversations or rocking styles(?) of sitters, or how the user is going to put peg-A into hole-F, going to change anything the chair maker does to cater to each personal experience, to change the way it "sits" or "rocks" for each individual personally? But a personal gameplay scene for a player, the mapper needs to get "into" his own game as all these different players
in a special way. (I mean we're talking about a game where "personally changing ourselves" is possible. More like Deus Ex; not like Minesweeper.) I thought it was a special thing mappers had to get into, in crafting their product, that other crafts don't really in the same way. You need to make a wall as if a player could come at it from any direction in any kind of situation; so you need to be in their head at every step.
Edit2: Fine, maybe even a chair has that. Then I'd just say, who the hell has their life changed rocking in a freaking chair? That's dumb, haha. But people can have very personal experiences in a game. The mapper is not uninvolved in this I think. That's all I'm trying to say. :)
You've obviously never sat in one of my chairs.
