Dungeon Crawling Anxiety... Coin a name!

[zamble]

Oh, all the time. I call it "greed".

 

[Mikaze]

I shall call it OCDES - Obsessive Compulsive Dungeon Explorer Syndrome

 

[Disaster Button]

Oh, all the time. I call it "greed".

And snap.
I will always go the amazingly long way around to just make sure I don't miss out on anything, ever. Even if it turns out all that I end up finding is a wolf pelt.

I call it OGC, Obsessive Greed Compulsion.

I also call it this because it gives me an excuse to ask you all, what does OGC look like when you turn your head to the left and look at it?

 

[Hovy14]

Oh, all the time. I call it "greed".

I call it OGC, Obsessive Greed Compulsion.

I also call it this because it gives me an excuse to ask you all, what does OGC look like when you turn your head to the left and look at it?

oh god...
OT: Yes this happens to me all the time. Star Ocean creators are GOD at making this scenario

 

[ma55ter_fett]

yes I know exactly what you are talking about, I usually remedy it by telling myself that if the game doesn't require me to visit all those places then I will go back myself.

I call it "Missedlootzphobia", also "Incomplete map syndrome"

 

[Insanum]

I get that when playing solitare. there are two black three's on top of a pile...If i pick the wrong one i could lose the game...

I call it "arse".

 

[A Raging Emo]

I get it all the time; I think I'm just a natural explorer, as the first thing I do when I buy a FPS with Mulitplayer, after doing the single player I explore the maps by myself.

 

[Flour]

I call it exploration, but I don't think it's the same.

In every game I play I explore every area of the map. I would even go around a pillar to 'clear' that area on the map.
It's a problem for roguelikes though. Exploring everything means new monsters get generated, or I find a potentially nasty trap.(or worse, a monster finding a polymorph trap and polymorphing in a dragon)

So I end up checking a guide for where all the wrong routes are, and then find out that the boss at the end of the dungeon IS MY BROTHER because there's no spoiler warnings. Then the game is ruined.

There are spoiler free walkthroughs. But for some reason they're rare for more recent games.
But I agree that walkthroughs that say "the +5 sword of infinity is found in the room where you battle your brother" are annoying, especially because most people that write guides assume that, if you're reading a walkthrough you don't care about spoilers.

 

[WaywardHaymaker]

All the time. Even in MW2, I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving a room uncleared, for fear of losing potential intel laptops.

 

[Steppin Razor]

I get this all the time, but I get it in both random and preset dungeons. It's really terrible at the moment on Persona 3 when I explore the whole floor and the only thing I get extra is a whole 2000 yen. The chance to find something that -might- possibly be decent is what drives me to explore everywhere. I wouldn't call it greed as it's more a case of being an rpg loot whore. I also find it almost impossible to sell any item that is remotely unique. Even when said items only reason for existence is so you can compare it's stats to your base starting weapon which is infinitely better.

 

[Daedalus1942]

Ok... I am going to describe a phenomenon that I get when I play certain rpgs, and I would be interested in two things: if other people get this sensation too, and if they have a name for it.

When I am playing an rpg with non-random, but complicated dungeons (the standard ones with chests, random encounters, boss fights, secret rooms and such) I often come across the following situation:

Reaching a fork in the path, I can either go left or right. Choosing one of the two, I come to another fork, up or down, and so on. I now have 1 path that I am *on*, and potentially three unexplored paths. Since any rpger worth his or her salt does not want to miss the super cool equipment, or spell etc. that may be in any room in the dungeon I feel the need to make sure I have traversed every path. This is when the feeling comes up: a vague uneasiness which accompanies these missed choices in path. It even gets to the point where I subconsciously feel relieved when the path I choose is a dead end, because I think "Thank god, I don't have to remember this path... on to the next one!". Often I will even backtrack when I see a room is too open to see if I can't knock out the dead-end paths to start with (to reduce the number of 'choices taken' that I have to remember.

And if I get to a *third* intersection (7 unexplored paths now), I actually begin to feel somewhat stressed out.

So as I said, two questions:

- Do you ever get this feeling? If not, what do you do in the above situation?

- If you do feel this anxiety, care to give it a name?

RPM - Role Playing Missedtrophibia - The fear of what may lie in the path not taken.
I get it allllll the time (Demon's Souls when I get it, will drive me batty).

 

[Daedalus1942]

That's the best description of that feeling I've ever heard. =]
I used to get it all the time in Oblivion - luckily most of the dungeons loop back onto themselves so you can just keep going around until you've seen everything.

That entire game loops back on itself, from start to finish.... *shudder*

 

[Daedalus1942]

I call it OCD! I have to cover every inch of the damn dungeon

Maybe we should call it OCDD (Obsessive Compulsive Dungeon Disorder)?

 

[Jedoro]

I don't get anxiety from it, but I do know how you feel. I gotta check every path, though.

 

[9NineBreaker9]

The "Tales of" series is what has given me this wonderful anxiety, and now I feel the need to search everywhere ever in order not to miss something.

I shall call it OCDES - Obsessive Compulsive Dungeon Explorer Syndrome

I like this name. Lets go with it!

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Yeah, I get that feeling. Often I'll explore one room, to find a small tunnel leading somewhere, only to go back, and completely explore the other way (right up to the exit), go all the way and see what I was missing, which more often than not just leads to a little alcove with not much there, five feet from where I stopped venturing the first time. A little annoying, but I'm thorough in my RPGs, so I don't mind exploring all possibilities. I call this sensation 'fun'.

 

[Jenova65]

I call it OCD! I have to cover every inch of the damn dungeon

Maybe we should call it OCDD (Obsessive Compulsive Dungeon Disorder)?

That works for me ;-)

 

[Deleted]

I always hope that the path I choose isn't the right one, cause then I have to backtrack to see them all.

Has this ever happened to anyone? When you play a game that requires quick instincts and while pressing buttons like a champ you stop and your fingers freeze for a second because you forgot which button to press. I call that gamer limbo. When your body sends signals to your fingers at a constant rate, eventually when you run out of things to send you give an empty signal and your fingers don't know what to do for a second. Its not simply just forgetting, but your fingers just stop waiting for the next command and for a moment you forget everything, your name, memories the game you're playing everything you're blank for a second.

 

[[Insert Name Here]]

I get that in every single RPG I play. I'd call it DENTIST (Dungeon Explorers Need to Take all Items and Tail).