My opinions in the dreaded wall of text:
5. Agreed. When I played the old Sonic games and Runescape, I was cautious about potentially dangerous things. In Sonic, I'd be cautious on the last stages because they usually had bottomless pits 95% of the time, and you had limited lives. Runescape had you lose items in your inventory, so I always practiced my strategy and kept a sufficient food supply so I wouldn't die. It's good that games put a risk element in them, because although losing is frustrating, it makes you a better player because you don't want to fail. Seems like most reviewers hate that and prefer a game that holds your hand the whole way. If you encounter a difficult part, you should practice or grind to get past that, not switch on beginner mode.
4. Grinding is a good thing, because it makes you appreciate what you earned from it. An recent example would be what I grinded for in Pokemon SoulSilver. I wanted to teach my Pokemon a move that would help it combat Pokemon who had an advantage against it. I could learn the ability from a person who wanted 64 Battle Points for it. To get BP, you participate in consecutive battles at the Battle Frontier; every 7 trainers you beat in a row gives you 3 BP. I spread out my grinding over a week so I could do other things to keep me from being bored. After I got that move I was aiming for, I was so overjoyed. Now imagine if I was given that stuff from the start, or for a very cheap price. No accompishment. While people don't like the time put in to grinding, we can agree that it all pays off (most of the time anyway).
3. I (almost) always read the wall of text I was presented, because I found it more immersible when you actually knew what was going on. Plus, I often found some tips they would give me to help me out. His WoW example is a good one, because you would have to read through the wall of text to find out where needed to go, plus some backstory on your quest. Today they still have that, but why read it when you can open the map and read the label "GO HERE"? With that stuff it makes it easier to find difficult things I agree, but now players go around killing stuff without knowing what the hell is going on. It wouldn't matter if they had the recover artifacts that hold the key to saving the world. It's kill this, take this, complete quest here, get weapons, repeat.
2. Pretty much the same opinions for 3 apply to 2.
1. I don't cheat when playing through the game the first time. I honestly see it as an insult to the developers by taking their creation and making it super easy. After I beat the game, I might do that thing where I turn on God Mode and kill everyone I see, or something else like that. Cheats make the game fun for a short while, like super slow-motion in CoD4, but it doesn't compare to playing clean.
