Arachnophobia in RPGs

[Merkavar]

What? These cute little guys?
<.<

Awe Ninjad

Spoiler

Yeah i dont like spiders either. but i dont get scared of them ingame. I just hate huntsman but only when they are above me. like on the wall or ceiling or window, right at face level as i open my curtains.

aracnophoia (sp?) is common enough that im surprised someone hasnt made mods for most games that turn spiders etc into pigs or elephants or something less scary.

 

[DrunkDonut]

Feel excaptly the same and think example of this can be Oblivion Skyrim. In Oblivion for the 360 they had no giant spiders ( that I know off ) but in one of issues of OXM they did a feature on Skyrim and it showed a Picture of one made me curse Bethesda.

 

[Fiend Dragon]

Looks like someone else had the same idea! Can't speak for the function of the mod, just noticed it as I was browsing.

http://www.dragonagenexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2149

No particular fear of spiders myself, and my avatar can speak to that should you be familiar with it. ::: I'm actually quite pleased that there was a mod to give you so you could get enjoy the game better. There do seem to be an unusually large amount of spiders in DA2... Quite a lot of boring enemies in general actually.

 

[Shirai Ryu 4587]

mate i know exactly how you feel in oblivion i had to stay permenently lv 1 so the deidra spiders wouldnt appear

in overlord 2 i had to get my brother to kill the boss spider because i couldnt even look at it

i was also going to buy dragon age 2 but saw the spiders and went hell no

and i was most looking forward to the elder scrolls skyrim but the spiders are amazingly fucking spine shattering shit your pants terrifiying

if the spiders dont look like real spiders then its easy to ignore but on skyrim the game developers went out of their way to piss arachnaphobes like you and me off

rpgs are my faverouite genre of games but i find myself losing out on classics because of my irrational fear of spiders

 

[joonatanr]

NOOOO!!! not Skyrim too. Why the heck are these things so popular in games? I mean I get it that in fantasy games things like goblins, the undead, dragons etc are pretty much a part of the genre. But simply giant bugs, what's up with that. Giant spiders were never a part of virtually any folklore scandinavian or otherwise, so why have they become a part of the fantasy genre. I mean seriously has anybody ever praised a game for having really good spider enemies?

In any case arachnophobia sucks big time. And the worst thing for me is that I can't really seem to do anything about it. People often keep telling you to face your fears and conquer them, but that's just like a bad Hollywood slogan. It sounds good, but gives you little benefits in real life. I've been trying the whole facing one's fears thing for as long as I can remember. Once I even held a live tarantula on my hand(it was probably more scared than I was), but it turns out you can't just simply undo something that's been hardwired into your brain. And it's no more possible to rationalize it than for instance telling yourself that pain is only in your head and then putting your hand into fire.

I did have some luck with one particular instance. I would suggest that anybody with arachnophobia play WOW for a month or two. Basically it has some of the creepiest spiders I've ever seen, but there was something about the way they appeared that made it a lot easier. Basically you started out with really small harmless looking spiders. Then moved on to slightly larger and more menacing ones until you finally got to the realistic, but uncannily large ones. Until finally you had to face the huge monstrous eight legged grotesgue freaks. This gradual desenzitisation was actually quite helpful. But it didn't really eradicate the panic attacks, just made them easier to bare.

In any case, I don't want to try and fight a strong aspect my psychology every time I play a game. I just want to enjoy it not feel incredibly stressed and horrified. Games should be fun and that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be scary at all, but the fear of spiders for arachnophobes isn't really common fear. It's more like a panic response that's been set to trigger at the sight of an arachnid. It's also incredibly irrational, for instance I have no fear whatsoever of giant scorpions (the ones in fallout were slightly creepy but manageable) or even ants. But the fear of spiders seems to be by far more common than other phobias. It's clear that games cannot cater to everybody's needs, but it just seems to me that since we're dealing with a significant part of the population and since the gaming industry wouldn't really anything by leaving out spiders and replacing them with ghouls for instance, then it can be concluded that games really would benefit from having less arachnids in them.

Still, Skyrim, whyyy?????

 

[Thaluikhain]

I agree, giant spiders are way too common. They're just not interesting anymore.

Though, I will say that you always seem to see big hairy spiders, not, say, orb spiders (they don't have their legs sticking out at all angles, they have them in sets of two pointing out diagonally). Though, orb spiders just sit in webs and wait for bugs to fly into them, which isn't scary.

 

[Xaryn Mar]

NOOOO!!! not Skyrim too. Why the heck are these things so popular in games? I mean I get it that in fantasy games things like goblins, the undead, dragons etc are pretty much a part of the genre. But simply giant bugs, what's up with that. Giant spiders were never a part of virtually any folklore scandinavian or otherwise, so why have they become a part of the fantasy genre. I mean seriously has anybody ever praised a game for having really good spider enemies?

The answer to this is, as always, Tolkien.

Remember the spiders in The Hobbit, Shelob in Lord of the Rings or Ungoliath in Silmarillion?

 

[Keava]

Most modable RPGs on PC do have mods that change spiders and spiderlike creatures into something else (in DA:O/DA2 i think it was wolves), but yeah, until developers actually pay attention and expand on the idea of modding which is in their best interest (because a mod-able game has longer lifespan, and thus longer shelf life - people still do buy Warcraft3 and Morrowind/Oblivion) don't expect it everywhere.

I remember playing WoW with a friend who had arachnophobia was a bit of pain, especially when someone had spider pet along as spider, same time however hearing the scream of panic on vent was always... heart warming (i'm a bad bad person)

 

[joonatanr]

It seems that while spiders themselves do have a place in european folklore, giant monstrous spiders are rare. I did come across after some intensive googling, on a japanese legend that depicts a giant monstrous spider living in the mountains. Anyway I do wonder why it's the spiders that have been taken over from Tolkien's work and not for instance the giant eagles, which also feature quite prominently.

Anyway I understand why they have their place in a horror movie, but it just seems that in computer games they are unnecessary. Basically it just shows that the developers have no imagination and no new ideas. Instead of coming up with something interesting they just put the stamp creatures there and just try to come up with an even creepier spider than the last game did.

BTW checked out the screens from Skyrim, after a bit of shuddering realized that's gonna be another otherwise really good game I'm not gonna play for the same stupid, stupid reason. Morrowind didn't have spiders, Oblivion didn't have spiders with the exception of the daedra. Hmm I guess that Bethesda realized that these games must've been obvious failures because of that very reason and started to make sure that their games are spiderfree nomore.

 

[onewheeled]

Let me give my fellow arachnophobes a bit of advice: NEVER play the tutorial for the Source-based MMO Vindictus. The very first boss is a H-U-G-E, hairy, white spider that's the size of a house. Thank God you can skip past the tutorial.

 

[joonatanr]

The spider boss in The Witcher was pretty alright. It looked more like a crab to me and therefore less scary. I'd suggest playing Witcher to any arachnophobe as it has got a load of interesting enemies and no spiders. Not sure about witcher 2 haven't gotten around to it yet.

 

[MercurySteam]

The massive spiders that take up an entire room in DA2 makes me shit bricks.

 

[Xaio30]

If you want to go Balls to the Wall here, you should totally play Dark Messiah.
First person RPG with looots of them little (big) critters.

 

[Kiefer13]

I'm an arachnophobe too, but spiders in most games don't bother me. I'm know there are a few exceptions, but I can't remember specific examples right now. The poison headcrabs in Half-Life 2 aren't spiders, but they're close enough to evoke the same kind of reaction. Hate those little bastards.

 

[kayisking]

I am an arachnophobe, I am afraid of spiders and scorpions. Arachnophobia is an irrational fear, meaning that even a picture of an arachnid is enough to create a fear response in the brain which can cause high anxiety or even panic attacks depending on the strength of the response in the subject. Arachnids and RPG's have a long history together, but I'm wondering why now more than ever there seems to be a lack of creativity in the process of designing enemies for RPG's? Instead of actually coming up with something new, they take something scary, give it steroids and a boss the size of a building.

Oblivion's resident arachnid was a half-woman, half-spider that was scary at first and entertaining because it was just incredible enough for me to play though without any trouble. Fallout 3's Giant Radscorpions however, were grotesques. The game designers took many aspects of real scorpions and made them even more frightening. Dragon Age II did the same with spiders, and while the normal level enemies don't give me much trouble, I had to call in a friend to kill the boss level queens, again- grotesques. I am wondering if anyone else has had the same problem and if it is implausible to actually expect game developers to care.

Is a non-arachnids mod or option really too much to ask to play my favorite games?

It is quite implausible for designers or modders to care about every single Phobia. There are people with a phobia for water, but that doesn't mean you're morally bankrupt if you don't make a mod for your game that removes all the water. But of course, this is just my opinion.

Ps. Please excuse my poor English, I am not a native speaker.

 

[joonatanr]

Now that I think about it it just doesn't make any sense to put spiders in these games

1) number of people that won't buy a game because it HAS spiders in it : Potentially 20% of gamers me definitely among them

2) number of people that won't buy a game because: damn no spiders this time????, not buying it: umm zeroish??

 

[Ice Car]

Fallout 3's Giant Radscorpions however, were grotesques. The game designers took many aspects of real scorpions and made them even more frightening.

To be fair, A nuclear war can cause some very fucked up shit, including but not limited to, genetic mutations. You would expect Scorpions to be altered as many other animals, and having a giant variant isn't surprising to me. I don't think it is a forced enemy seen as a lack of creativity, as it's reason for being so is rational and makes sense.

 

[joonatanr]

I would argue against kayisking's point that with arachnophobia being the most common phobia, it would simply make sense from a business perspective to omit spiders from RPG-s especially since they are not an integral part of fantasy games. (Dragon age would have been a huge success and even more so without spiders for instance.)

 

[Cavan]

I was reading something about arachnaphobia awhile ago that said something like 20% of males and 60% of females have some degree of arachnaphobia.

I've always wondered why games in general don't have a sort of "pixel killer" in the options to turn all spiders into some generic model.

Doesn't seem like it would be difficult at all, and yet I've never seen it. Maybe since more women are playing video games things will change. I actually love spiers, big ones, little ones, etc. So i really don't care personally, but if my info I was reading is correct I do find it odd.

The number of people who are so afraid of spiders that seeing one on a screen will cause them to have a panic attack is FAR lower than 1% of the popular, do not base your logic on the idea that 20% of men and 60% of women are anything like the OP in terms of response.

Quite a lot of those people actually enjoy killing spiders because it gives them a safe way to vent their fear.

Now that I think about it it just doesn't make any sense to put spiders in these games

1) number of people that won't buy a game because it HAS spiders in it : Potentially 20% of gamers me definitely among them

Unless you can give some proof for this i'm going to call bull.

If game designers are still finding it difficult to compensate for colourblindness which affects 10% of the male population in a male dominated activity, finding the time to change things based on a very severe phobia response that affects a much smaller % of the population seems a little off.
It's like basing your game around people who only have one hand or who hide behind the sofa when shown the number 7 or a scottish accent.

I would suggest to anybody suffering from this to either find a modder or learn to do it yourself and to simply swap out x monster for something else.

 

[hazabaza1]

If you want to go Balls to the Wall here, you should totally play Dark Messiah.
First person RPG with looots of them little (big) critters.

Oh, fuck, don't mention those.
Oddly, the spider queen wasn't too scary though.