PC game commandments

[Orcus The Ultimate]

That's some perfect rules to live by !

Heh, thanks. Here's volume 2:

1. Thou shalt not build thine game around cover-based combat.
2. Thou shalt pay close attention and take thine time with dialogue
3. Thou shalt listen to thine customers
4. Thou shalt delay a game's release if it means the game is better in the end
5. Thou shalt not attempt to harm used game sales
6. Thou shalt release authoring tools
7. Thou shalt use more than 'brown' when selecting colors
8. Thou shalt not hide our savegames. The ideal location shall be termed "/Saves
9. Thou shalt not port to PC from console. Thou ist allowed to port from PC to console, however.
10. Thou shalt not rely on Valve Anti Cheat for anti-hacking. VAC works, but it takes too damn long and can be circumvented. Allowing us to make our own admin plugins for dedicated servers accomplishes this.

The 20 Rules of Gaming !

So Be it !

 

[The Eggplant]

Thou shalt have a console command interface for general dicking about.

Couldn'tve said it better myself. So I won't.

OT: Thou shalt not palette-swap an enemy and pretend that it is a new enemy. Especially if thy name is not Diablo II, to whom a pass is granted in this respect.

 

[Sacman]

Thou shalt make thy game extremely difficult and unintuitive so only a hardcore gamers can play...

 

[octafish]

Thou Shalt make menu options, in game menus and in game written dialogue scrollable with the mouse wheel. Why in Mass Effect you could read the numerous log entries with the scroll wheel, yet couldn't in ME2 is a mystery to me.

I don't mind if some games have cover systems, although I prefer to crouch and lean, but please dont have a couple of empty corridors and then a room full of chest high crates. Gee i wonder if there are any bad guys in there? Occasionaly I'd like to be ambushed in a place where there isn't tonnes of convenient cover. I'd better stop now before this just turns into a why Mass Effect is better than ME2 rant.

 

[Thedayrecker]

Thou shalt not fuck over PC gamers with release dates.

 

[Sn1P3r M98]

Thou shalt allow cutscene pausing for when I need to pee.

Thou shalt include an SDK or level designer on release.

 

[cpnichol]

Thou shalt not have any "press any/start button" screens. Been bugging me for years, every time I see one I just think, how about you ditch this screen then I don't have to press a button for no good reason.

Thou shalt support multiple makes of gamepad. EA are terrible for that and have been for at least 5 years despite it being something rather easy to fix.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Omega]1. Thou shalt not make the AI ignore the rules and/or cheat in any way. A challenge is fun, playing a cheater causes homicide.

2. Thou shall hire actual writers for your story so that it does not become another generic Terrorist/Sci-Fi/ plot.

3. Thou shalt not advertise a patch as DLC.

4. Thou shalt not use DRM. Pirates find a way around it, legitimate gamers are punished by it.

can agree to this especially 1 and 2, 1 irks me like no other. id rather just have them smarter, which sure requires you to not be lazy and program a bit more, but it makes the experience SO MUCH BETTER instead of having the cpu bend the shit out of rules to make me rage.

 

[Talshere]

Thou Shalt Not Use Games For Windows Live under any conditions, as it is an abomination unto all that is Holy.

EDIT: Google Autocomplete knows it's true:

I've never understood this =S I mean...I don't get what is so wrong with it, though I have only used 2 games with it and they have been fine for me, and it also allows me to talk to my friends who just use X-boxes(and I can also add the game to Steam, so I can be talking to both parties)....I don't get it..

Games for windows live is notorious for kicking people mid game and spamming the notorious NAT error, despite the fact that until it kicked you everything was fine. It is incredibly picky over what type of router you are using and the way its set up. It often fails to connect when joining games. It lags horribly. Joining games is needlessly complicated.

Seriously. Dawn Of War 2 and Company of Heroes Online are the same game set in 2 different eras. CoHO is infinitely better because they were not stupid enough to use games for windows live. Relic has come out and said that choosing to use GfWL was the worst decision they ever made, and caused the multiplayer to be almost unplayable for the first 6 months of release as they spammed patches and fixes in an attempt to solve the problem.

If youve never had any problems with it. you are one of the very very lucky few.

 

[Talshere]

why can we not we save or pause? what if i need to pee

What? MMO gamers don't pee?

Anyway.

666. Thou shalt not steal thine game ideas from others.

(Yes Blizzard, I'm looking at you.)

lol....you see there new "peaceblooms vs. ghouls" minigame ORIGINAL to the EXTREME

RULE #1 Thou shall not make normal...hard as hell and normal monsters shouldnt be able to pwn you because of rng..commmon now

On this note: Thou shalt not make thine games pushovers.

Halo 1 on legandary was hard. Halo 2 on Legendary was fuckin impossible, especially on 2 player mode. Halo 3 on Legendary was about as hard as the first 2 on normal.

WoW is another culprit of this. Easy content, while it may allow everyone to experience the story, remove the satisfaction of completion, destroying the game experience.

Ninja Gaiden may have over killed it a bit. Though the first one was far from impossible. The second on was a joke. How your supposed to not die to something that you cant see and 1 shots you the moment you walk into the room idk.


EDIT: How do you delete posts?

 

[Atmos Duality]

Thou shalt not make a sandbox game with a mission that ends it. (F3)

Thou shalt also not profit from thine sin. (this one especially).

Additionally:

Thou shalt not remove local/LAN multiplayer support only to sell us a subscription to thine multiplayer monopoly later.

Thou shalt not invoke the name of Kotick without a curse or complaint.

Thou shalt not pad thy game with needless grind.

Thou shalt port thy games wisely. Lead us not into tedium, but deliver us from console-interfaces! (PC only)

Thou shalt not remake thine game over and over again for profit.

 

[PixelJunk]

Thank you SO MUCH for posting that.


You're awesome.

 

[CleverNickname]

Totally agreed on the Quicksave Commandment. Certain genres do fine with checkpoints (and have enough history/experience with them that their placement is pretty much universally brilliant), but AUTOSAVE-ONLY DOES NOT BELONG IN MY FPS! Or in Splinter Cell, for that matter. Textbook example of artificial difficulty.

I'm now boycotting (lol) FPSs that do not allow quicksaving. The ones I played recently showed no sign of being designed around their checkpoints and in fact would have flowed a million times better with a quicksave function.
Not to forget that quicksaving enables you to easily dick around in games. I wonder if jumping in lava will kill me? Oh, but if I try it out, I have to redo the whole last fucking half hour!

 

[imaloony]

I sort of liked the FF13 style of cutscenes. By pressing start, you could pause the cutscene. From there, you can continue the cutscene by pressing start again, or skip it by pressing back.

Also, let's not forget Yahtzee's:

- Thou shalt not be on the Wii

 

[Rattler5150]

1. Thou shalt alt-tab gracefully

Many "modern" PC games fail horribly at this.

2. Thou shalt create an interface that is designed for 18 inches and a keyboard and mouse, rather than copy your 10 foot, gamepad based console interface.

Fallout 3, Borderlands, Mass Effect 2. The keyboard has 110 ish buttons, the mouse has at least 3. Let players assign different buttons to open, pick up, jump, run, slide, duck etc.

Let me switch weapons with a single button without opening up a scroll menu, and ffs let me carry more than 2 weapons, the HALO stupidity needs to die except maybe in games trying for realism.

3. (general gaming, not pc specific) Thou shalt allow saving and pausing at any time, save points are a relic of a bygone era.

4. (general gaming, not pc specific) All "intro" screens shall be skippable with a single button, and ideally automatically skippable with a configuration file setting.

I don't care if the game was designed for Nvidia or who made your 3D engine. I don't need 30 second animated advertisements for the developer, and the publisher, and the distributor every time I start up the game. I want to go to the menu to play the damn game. Borderlands is particularly bad about this one.

I'm sure others can think of other commandments to add to this list.

1. I totally agree with. Fallout 3 always gives me issues with alt-tabbing

2. A lot of "ported" games do it quick and easy by just copying the console controller
they should take the time to fully utilize a keyboard and mouse

3. I agree with this too, the GTA games are notorious for this, I cannot stand that I have to go all the way back to a house to save

4. This is very annoying , most of these "chipset ads" are not skippable, I should be able to hit esc and go straight to the main menu of the game

I would add another commandment THOU SHALT NEVER NEED WINDOWS LIVE
I hate the fact that so many games are Games for Windows now, microsoft should do us all a favor and get out of the games market, im serious, you are not helping matters, you are just making it worse.

 

[Flames66]

Thou shalt continue to release games compatible for older OS's such as XP.

that's impractical for a myriad of technical reasons. upgrade your OS and stop complaining.


OP: though shalt not have bullshit DRM.

Thou shalt have an option in the graphical settings to turn off the Direct x 10 function that I didn't even notice so that older versions can still play it.